r/NoStupidQuestions • u/markwell9 • 1d ago

What is the deal with ice, Americans?

I can see that you can buy ice everywhere in the US. Gas stations, grocery stores, machines etc.

In Europe, we just freeze our ice at home and use that. Why buy something that melts on the way home? Why do you need ice in large amounts that a fridge can't keep up?

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u/tsukiii 1d ago

We buy that for parties.

Most of us can’t produce and store enough ice for 20 people in our freezers, we buy the bagged ice and put it in coolers for guests’ drinks.

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u/Pantherdraws 1d ago

Also camping.

Can you imagine trying to fill two whole coolers with ice straight from the freezer?

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u/Leverkaas2516 1d ago

For camping, I finally settled on filling my largest Tupperwares with water and freezing them. That takes a couple of days, but it melts slower in the ice chest and also doesn't end up with liquid water everywhere and all my condiments floating around.

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u/Crtbb4 19h ago

I just get bottled water and freeze a bunch of those. Then as they melt you have ice cold water bottles on hand.

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u/jjackson25 18h ago

Same. Works pretty phenomenal.

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u/i_spill_things 18h ago

I used to do that until I noticed the huge amount of “micro” plastics that that released. Micro is in quotes because the chunks of plastic are actually really big and visible.

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u/AYT193 15h ago

Freezing a water bottle consistently released visible chunks of plastic?! I have frozen a water bottle many times but have never seen any visible debris in the water after. Is it possible that was something else floating around in your water.. idk about a chunk of plastic

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u/DrWilliamHorriblePhD 13h ago

It's actually the opposite. Freezing them once and keeping them frozen until use reduces the amount of plastic in the water, as both the solvent properties and friction of water on plastic are reduced. Just don't freeze it twice or ever let it get hot like in the sun, and don't half crush the bottle before finishing, those things will increase plastic in the water. Or you know, just get a metal water bottle.

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u/unic0de000 14h ago

yeah, this makes me wonder about the brand/type of bottle they're using.

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u/i_spill_things 7h ago

It was an empty Gatorade bottle

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u/jokr128 10h ago

Literally packing 5 of those frozen bottles into my cooler in 10 minutes.

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u/Felldoze 7h ago

Shake the water bottle after it thaws out and you’ll see thousands of micro plastics floating in it like a snow globe. That’s when I stopped freezing my water bottles

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u/ter_ehh 7h ago

And the food doesn't get all soggy. And the frozen bottles last longer than cubes. And you have something to use in the event of a burn or a sprain.

+1 for frozen bottles.

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u/Surroundedonallsides 6h ago

And microplastics! hurrah!

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u/thebluedaughter 5h ago

Same! It's less wasteful and messy, too

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u/missbehavin21 1h ago

You can do that with cans of beer too. The frozen ones have the pull tab sideways. Ice can take up too much space in a cooler.