It’s the deepest nightmare of many distinguished dorks. They’ve finally sourced that rare, elusive vintage dream item. They’ve secured the order. It flies halfway around the globe. Only to be intercepted, even annihilated, by someone at the border. It’s a terror made real a few times in the past, but now collectors are concerned the frequency is about to accelerate as the Trump administration’s new e-waste policies goes into effect.
“PSA: CRTs and other ewaste can no longer be exported from the USA due to a recent law, and even imports are being caught in the net,” posted hobbyist techknight. “No more CRTs from Japan or elsewhere, do so at your own peril.”
PSA: CRTs and other ewaste can no longer be exported from the USA due to a recent law, and even imports are being caught in the net. No more CRTs from Japan or elsewhere, do so at your own peril. IBM CRT from Buyee destroyed by customs. https://t.co/hHCgdwftsD pic.twitter.com/7gI5Xui4FC
— techknight (@techknight2) August 6, 2026
In the post, techknight includes a screencap of a delivery tracker, where a vintage television from Illinois was intercepted on its way to Australia. Worst of all, according to the order the hardware was “liquidated.” While mistaken about imports entering America, the tension isn’t without precedent.
Last month, Donald Trump signed a new order to restrict shipping and exporting of e-waste in attempts to limit China’s influence on rare minerals. One of the key points of contention in the White House’s trade war is Chinese access to resources like tungsten and lithium, which are commonplace in consumer electronics. American facilities have been unable to meet increasing demand to recycle used smart phones and old hardware. It’s long become common practice to export e-waste overseas to fill someone else’s landfill. Now that Trump is at the copper-stripping portion of the trade war, he’s hoping to keep these old gizmos from crossing the border to be processed at home.
Of course, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Cough in the crossfire of this e-waste crusade are vintage computers and home entertainment. As access to software and media becomes more tenuous in a world without hard copies, enthusiasts are retreating to second hand tech like retro games, DVDs and the humming CRTs with which to play them on. Since Trump’s latest order, collectors are sending out warning flares that items being shipped out of the States could be mulched.
This isn’t going to stop at CRTs. There’s gonna be a point where I order the last surviving copy of an anime on VHS & some underpaid customs worker is going to throw it into a wood chipper. https://t.co/dhbnJvovY3
— KennyLauderdale (@KennyLauderdal3) August 6, 2026
“This isn’t going to stop at CRTs,” posted YouTuber and anime historian Kenny Lauderdale. “There’s gonna be a point where I order the last surviving copy of an anime on VHS & some underpaid customs worker is going to throw it into a wood chipper. VHS? VCR? Uhh sorry gramps, that’s E-Waste. Don’t worry though, we threw away the last copy of the Um Jammer Lammy Arcade machine you tried shipping by freight, along with all those arcade boards, you know, because it’s E-Waste.”
Fans are concerned that customs agents aren’t exactly going to be exercising a lot of discipline when confiscating bins of old cables and floppy discs. The order should only apply to goods exiting the country, but it adds to an already anxious trend. Just last March one of the rarest video games on the planet, Tsukhime Trial Edition, was shredded by American customs en route to its buyer.