Few gas-station purchases scream summer quite as much as a white聽Styrofoam cooler. One can hold a day鈥檚 worth of beer or food and is cheap and light, which means you鈥檝e probably seen them all over your local beach, park, or crag. The obvious problem: Styrofoam isn鈥檛 recyclable. All those inexpensive coolers abandoned in boardwalk trashcans wind up as river flotsam or eternal landfill scum.
Igloo may have just become the first company to address that problem.
On Wednesday聽the food-storage and drinkware titan launched the聽 ($10), a biodegradable cooler made of recycled paper and paraffin wax, which will be available at 聽nationwide starting in May and at gas stations and supermarkets in June. With a volume of 16 quarts (enough for four people for a full day) and a claiming a surprisingly high maximum weight capacity of 75 pounds,聽the Recool is no second-rate eco-friendly alternative. Thanks to the paraffin wax, it鈥檚 highly water-resistant, which means it鈥檒l hold ice聽as it melts聽without soaking through. Igloo claims it鈥檒l keep ice for up to 12 hours and water for up to five days with no leaking.
Though Igloo is marketing the Recool as an alternative to single-use Styrofoam models, the brand notes that the cooler is actually good for multiple uses. Just pour out the ice and water and leave the lid off to let the inside dry before storing. And when you鈥檝e used yours beyond saving, toss it in the recycling bin.聽The paper and wax both degrade on their own. (Igloo doesn鈥檛 specify how many uses the Recool will last, or exactly how long it takes to break down completely.)
Igloo hasn鈥檛 yet released which gas station and supermarket chains will be selling Recool but wrote in a press release that distribution will reach 鈥渢housands of other retail locations nationwide.鈥澛
Of course, at the end of the day the most sustainable choice is still to buy a cooler that will last a decade or more rather than a hundred eco-friendly ones. Even biodegradable聽products have to be manufactured and shipped, both of which come with their own carbon footprints. But we鈥檝e all found ourselves in situations where single-use is the best solution鈥攍ike when your cooler breaks, you鈥檙e flying to a beach destination and can鈥檛 bring your reusable one along, or when聽you only need a cooler a couple of times a year and can鈥檛 justify the cost of a high-quality聽long-lasting one. Recool fills that role better than anything we鈥檝e seen.