Safe Ice Cube Trays for Iced Coffee

Ice cubes, plastic & coffee

Occasionally I like to drink iced coffee in the winter but when summer hits I’m making so much the ice cubes almost never freeze fast enough. That’s why I recently went looking for larger trays, which would also compensate my losses when the rest of the family wanted ice for their own drinks.

It was in this pursuit to stockpile more cubes that I realized something I hadn’t considered before: my trays were made from plastic and just like many other types of kitchenware manufactured from that material they may be unsafe under certain conditions.

Plastic and chemicals

In its pure form plastic is a simple and harmless material but for various reasons companies usually add extra chemicals during its production. Some, such as Bisphenol A (otherwise known as BPA) are believed to contribute to a number of neurological and physical ailments, especially when the plastic is heated or the contents are hot.

When temperatures rise what occurs is the leaching or transfer of toxins into food or drinks that are then ingested and absorbed by the body.

Now I know that when making iced coffee I don’t usually take a freshly brewed boiling hot pot, pour it in an ice cube tray and freeze it.

Nevertheless, during house cleaning trays can be exposed to heat in dishwashers and there are plenty of other chemicals besides BPA that don’t necessarily need high temperatures to react.

For instance consider water in plastic bottles, which has been known to take on a plastic-like taste after a while even without heat exposure. Although I go through my ice cubes rather quickly from June through August I can only imagine a similar process might be occurring with my trays when they are idle in the freezer during the winter months.

And even if the actual freezing process isn’t causing any harm there’s still other concerns.

For example, popping cubes out of plastic trays means bending them back and forth or smacking them against a counter. This often causes cracks, which may not look like anything suspicious but small shards of plastic could break off and get absorbed in hot coffee. Also, the cracks could make it easier for other chemicals to get released.

Solutions:

Taking all of this into consideration there are two main options:

1. Find a way to make iced coffee without ice cubes.
2. Find alternatives to plastic trays.

From my kitchen the second choice is a bit more practical and the path I’ve chosen. Instead of purchasing plastic trays for my new inventory of ice cubes I’ve gone with aluminum, though silicone and rubber are two other alternatives.

Whichever you choose, realize I’m not knocking all plastic products because there are plenty out there that are highly useful.

At the same time my message should be clear: if we’re going to enjoy something as good as a fresh cup of coffee and turn it into an icy treat we should be doing everything possible to make it as healthy an experience as possible.

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Jakob Barry writes for Hometalk.com, a growing community of homeowners and contractors sharing and monitoring home improvement projects together. He covers various home improvement topics including Green living and commercial cleaning services.

Photo by jaymiek.

Category: Coffee Information