The NeatIce Bag ($29.99) is a reusable ice container for your cooler that keeps your food and beer cold and the inside of your cooler neat (pun intended). While I continue to see great strides made in plastic bag recycling and point-of-sale discounts when using reusable shopping bags, it’s not enough. The U.N. Environment reports just nine percent of the world’s nine billion ton of plastic has been recycled. The rest of it ends up in landfills and clogging oceans and other water sources because plastics are not biodegradable.
What I Liked
Ice melts into the bag, not my cooler. My cooler isn’t the most hygienic. I know I should wash it with vinegar and water after every use to kill the fluvial zoo of mold and mildew. (I don’t). Yet I continue to add ice to the cooler, pile in beer, cheese, lunch meat, fruit. At the end of the day what’s left of my food and drink stash is floating in a pool of melted nasty cooler ice. Thanks to NeatIce, I have kissed those days goodbye. The NeatIce waterproof bag contains ice cubes inside 420-denier nylon belly. When the ice cubes melt, the meltwater is still contained inside that nylon belly.
Melt water is drinkable. The BPA-free NeatIce bag has a valve at the bottom and comes with a pour spout and convenient detachable 10-inch drain hose. Most people, myself included, dumped out their cooler water rather than risk an encounter with cholera or dysentery. On a recent mountain biking/camping trip to Wisconsin, I eschewed the gag reflux of yore and fill the bladder of my hydration pack with melted NeatIce water.
Good for the environment. Single-use plastics are a pox on the environment. Instead of purchasing a bag of ice bound in single-use plastic that will ultimately make its way to landfill or water system, the NeatIce bag is reusable—as is the melted water inside.
Tough. Even with the weight of beer bottles, beer cans and food upon it. Inside, the bag will hold about 10lbs of cubed ice, give or a take a cube.
Brilliant concept, so easy to use. Separate the Velcro, open the top and empty the contents of your freezer’s ice cube bin. Seal like a giant Ziplock baggie, fold the top down and match the Velcro tabs for an extra secure seal and toss in your cooler. When you’re done, turn it inside out to dry. That’s it. A full bag will keep a medium to large-sized cooler cool. If you have a small cooler, just use half as much ice.
What I didn’t Like
The silicone zipper seal requires very strong fingers.
Final Thoughts
My pre-NeatIce ice cube system was the bane of the environment’s existence: Plastic bags of ice from a store, soggy food and ending with dumping melted the water on the driveway or campsite. Even though I always recycled the plastic bags, NeatIce is a huge improvement.
It’s refreshing to see that such a simple concept and design makes such a large step towards reducing our footprint and the endless cycle of waste. It’s also sobering to see how much power we have in reducing waste with minimal effort and investment.
