BELLEVUE, WI (WTAQ) – The meth battle in Wisconsin continues as Wisconsin Attorney General announced a cost effective and time effective way to clean up the waste.
Brad Schimel was in Brown County Monday announcing the county as one of six sites for a new meth chemical storage container.
He says the sites are necessary as law enforcement runs into unsafe hazardous waste when locating and shutting down meth labs.
“Each pound of methamphetamine creates 5 to 6 pounds of hazardous waste. Five to six times the amount of meth is hazardous waste.”
Brown County Sheriff Chief Deputy Todd Delain says they already seized more meth this year than all of last year and they are taking a proactive approach to getting it off the streets.
“Nearly every law enforcement officer in the state of Wisconsin is going to be trained to recognize what the waste material might be in a meth lab.”
He says trained officers will remove the waste properly rather than waiting for a company to do it, saving time and money.
Currently, once a meth lab is discovered, the law enforcement agency has to call in a company to dispose of the waste and stay on scene until they arrive. Schimel says that costs money in the form of overtime pay as well as contracting for the job.
With the new system, officers nearby will be able to dispose of the waste and make the area more safe quicker than before.
“The average meth lab cleanup costs about $3,000 dollars each, but with this system, the average cleanup costs drop to $300 dollars,” Schimel says.
In the last seven years, Wisconsin has seen a nearly 500 percent increase in people using meth.
Delain says with the new system comes the reminder for community members to report what is suspicious and to not touch items that they find that may be related to meth use.
“We are asking people to report what appears to be meth production or meth lab waste,” Delain said.
Some common signs are cold medicine packages, 2-liter bottles or bottles with white powder or a red colored residue inside.
He says if picked up, those can be agitated and explosive.
