ABSTRACT In critiques of the American Military Industrial Complex, social actors in the weapons industry are often depicted as wasteful. For many years, and across the political spectrum, it has been common to accuse those who profit from war of wasting government investment or building useless weapons. Based on interviews with engineers and accountants at a Lockheed Martin facility in Upstate New York, I argue that representing and avoiding waste is actually a central dimension of creating weapons. Through environmental testing and risk analysis, those involved in military procurement and production actually use representations of waste as a way to legitimise and enjoy their labour.