About those animal guts on the freeway …

When a truck stopped abruptly Thursday afternoon, spilling a sun-warmed stew of animal guts onto the westbound lanes of Interstate 90, the question in many readers’ minds was undoubtedly: “Why?”

Some people who posted comments to the Spokesman.com story were just too disgusted to ask for more details.

One wrote, “Gross. Gross. Gross. Gross. I … Gross.” They should probably stop reading now.

As it turns out, the truck was heading toward a rendering plant in east Spokane. Think of it as a recycling plant, but instead of cans and bottles, the material in question is animal parts – specifically the parts people don’t want to eat.

That “byproduct” comes from many sources, among them restaurants, butcher shops and livestock farms. Then, in accordance with state traffic rules, it’s deposited into a trailer and hauled to the facility to be dissected and melted down.

There, the slurry of cooking grease and animal byproducts begins its transformation into everyday products like soap, makeup, paint, rubber, leather, detergents, pet food and biodiesel.

The facility at 4423 E. Hutton Ave. is run by California-based Baker Commodities Inc. A company vice president, Jimmy Andreoli, said the plant recycles every bit of material it takes in.

“It’s the oldest form of recycling,” he said, adding that the rendering industry diverts 59 billion pounds of material from U.S. landfills each year.

The impact is “carbon-negative,” Andreoli said. That means rendering the animal parts creates less carbon emissions than letting them rot in landfills.

One state trooper who responded to Thursday’s incident described it as the most disgusting thing he’s ever smelled. Authorities said the driver came to an abrupt stop to avoid a traffic jam, causing some of the trailer’s contents to “slosh out.”

It took a tractor and a pressure washer about two hours to clear the road of the slimy hazard. Andreoli said the driver worked for another company that contracts with Baker.

He also said it’s the first time a Baker truck has spilled its load without being involved in a collision.

The driver was not ticketed.