Don’t cry over spilled milk, molten aluminum or chicken poop

If you bought it, a truck brought it, or so the saying goes.

But an online map from Atlas Obscura shows that trucks spilled it too, or some of it.

The interactive map shows locations of things trucks spilled onto America’s roadways throughout 2016, each marked with a round icon color-coded according to what was spilled.

It appears that food was involved in most of these incidents. Most of Egan Highway near Juneau, Alaska, was blocked by a spill of whole salmon on July 26. “Cleanup efforts were difficult and reportedly unpleasant,” the site reported.

In the Lower 48, between 3,000 and 4,000 gallons of pomegranate juice was spilled on a highway near Stevenson, Wash., on July 8. About a month later, frozen beans ended up on a highway near Brooks, Ore., when a train rammed the back of a truck.

The mind may turn to food pairings: On Oct. 22 a container of red wine leaked onto a roadway near Napa, Calif., when the truck’s load shifted; and on Oct. 24 a truck flipped over south of Ashland, Ore., dumping 20 tons of cheese.

Milk – about 5,300 gallons of it – was spilled onto a highway ramp near Richmond, Va., on April 12, and ended up classified as a hazmat event, which is standard procedure, The Washington Post reported. But nobody spilled chocolate chip cookies to go with it, it appears.

If you want real hazardous materials, you can take your pick: The 27 tons of chicken manure that spilled onto State Route 14 in Washington state in March, preceding the pomegranate juice by four months; the septic tank truck that dumped an unknown quantity of human waste and several empty porta-potties on US-60 near Mesa, Ariz., on Feb. 27; or the accident in Vienna Township, Mich., Sept. 7 that dumped thousands of gallons of human waste onto Interstate 75.

Or try the molten aluminum that ended up on a highway near Mount Pleasant, Tenn., on June 27. Given that the melting point of aluminum is 1,221 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s no surprise that it set the road on fire, but firefighters quickly extinguished it.

What you won’t find on the map, at least not as of Tuesday evening, is an incident that happened Tuesday afternoon in Brookville, Pa., where a tanker truck overturned and spilled most of its load of liquid eggs into a nearby creek.

This story was originally published December 6, 2016 at 7:44 PM with the headline "Don’t cry over spilled milk, molten aluminum or chicken poop."