In 2021, Amazon Fresh in Singapore stopped using Xice ice packs and switched to sending cold bags with bottles of frozen water and later simple bags of water.

Was the move to bottles a good thing? Yes. 100%.

Firstly, the water can actually be reused and at worst just washed down the drain. So by weight, the burden of this method of cooling is far less than non-recyclable ice-packs. Even the water packs are less resource intensive than Xice.

The bottles themselves, made of PET, can be recycled. Yes recycling rates for plastic are low but they are not zero which is what the recycling rates were for these ice packs. 

We appreciate when retailers explore ways to reduce the carbon footprint of their packaging.