Ice Bottles for Cooler

At this time of year, we have a lot of lettuce and other spring greens, like I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2013/05/lettuce-assembly-line.html

It is important to keep these cool on warm days at the farmers's market.  Sometimes this proves to be a challenge.  But, Tom has found a way to do this and reuse plastic soda bottles in the process.

First, he fills a bunch of bottles with water (after drinking the contents, of course).  Then he freezes them.

We have an old refrigerator out in the garage.  He uses the freezer to keep the ice bottles between uses.   They can be reused many times.

The night before we go to the market, he places a layer of these bottles on the bottom of our coolers, like this. Obviously, he drinks a lot of green tea! 

Next, he places a towel over the bottles and it is ready to fill with greens or anything else we need to keep cool.

This helps keep plastic out of the landfill and saves us having to buy bags of ice every week for the coolers.   Plus, when the ice melts, it stays in the bottles and does not end up making a slushy mess in the bottom of the coolers.