For the past few months a number of customers have found that they are unable to get a monitor shipped to Minnesota from Amazon. It recently happened to us and we decided to look into it more.

We don’t have a definitive answer, but it may be because of this state statute: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/115A.1318 from 2006 which requires manufacturers of “Computer Displays” to register with the state and pay for the costs of recycling monitors based on the number they sell in MN, as well as making sure retailers “provide information to households describing where and how they may recycle video display devices and advising them of opportunities and locations for the convenient collection of video display devices for the purpose of recycling.”

It appears that MN lawmakers didn’t like people dumping their old Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors in landfills because the state would end up paying to clean them up. CRTs contain hazardous levels of lead to shield the viewer from the radiation used to generate images on the screen. According to How Stuff Works, it could be as high as 5 pounds per CRT!

It seems this law is another one of those “laws with unintended consequences” that force us to use work-arounds, like getting them shipped to nearby Wisconsin!