Methamphetamine Lab Photos

As you can see in our meth lab photos, a meth lab is a clandestine drug lab. It is a collection of materials and ingredients used to manufacture illegal drugs. Methamphetamine is made mostly from common household ingredients as seen below in these meth lab photos. When these ingredients are mixed and "cooked" together they make a dangerous drug and potentially harmful chemical mixtures that can remain on household surfaces for months or years after "cooking" is over. There may be health effects in people exposed to lab chemicals before, during and after the drug-making process. Therefore, each meth lab is a potential hazardous waste site, requiring evaluation, and possibly cleanup, by hazardous waste professionals.

Meth labs have been discovered in hotel and motel rooms, restaurants, barns, private homes and apartments, storage facilities, fields, vacant buildings and (moving or stationary) vehicles like the ones below in our meth lab photos. A minimum of 5 to 7 pounds of chemical waste are produced for each pound of meth manufactured.

After a lab has been abandoned or shut down by law enforcement, the property is usually found to be contaminated with hazardous chemicals. Methamphetamine is made (or ‘cooked’) from common, easily-available materials, using one of several basic chemical processes. There are hundreds of chemical products and substances that are used interchangeably to produce meth. The substitution of one chemical for another in meth recipes may cause the cooking process to be more hazardous (resulting in fire or explosion) or may result in a finished product with unwanted or dangerous effects. Many dangerous chemical ingredients are used to make meth. Also, chemical by-products such as toxic phosphine gas may be formed during meth manufacture. This may occur through planned chemical interaction, or by processing errors, such as increasing cooking temperatures too rapidly.