Ice Packs Just Get More Pure, from Plastic to Water

By Seulgi Jung

Boxes upon boxes of fresh produce and meat pile up at doorsteps, giving off cool air even on a steamy day. They bear the names of various grocery chains, from Market Kurly and Rocket Fresh (Coupang), which promote “dawn delivery” or “next day delivery” as their strength, to E-mart (SSG) and Homeplus, traditional offline supermarket chains that later expanded into online business.

Covid-19 reshaped the grocery shopping landscape that had long been seen as the domain of local markets. According to the Ministry of Data and Statistics, nearly four times as many agricultural and marine products were traded electronically two years into the pandemic as in 2019, meaning the use of ice packs—specifically gel ones that dominated the market at that time—to keep products fresh soared correspondingly.

Concerned about the growing plastic waste from gel packs, the Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Environment (MCEE) stepped in with a new policy in 2020 to curb their use.

This month, the Korea Economic Daily (한국경제) takes a look at whether anything has changed—and it appears the policy has been effective. Citing a study conducted by the Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Environment (MCEE), the article says green ice packs—generally made of water, starch, and salt—have quickly replaced gel ones since a policy imposing environmental charges on plastic cooling packets took effect in 2022, reducing the share of gel blocks to around one percent by 2024, a 78% drop from five years earlier.

While the “one percent” figure—an estimate based on the latest total number of packs consumed despite their ever-growing volume—may not be exact, it is largely accurate that gel packs have nearly disappeared from the market, according to analysis.

What stands out is how swiftly businesses responded to the policy change. The numbers indicate that online grocery sellers cut gel pack consumption by more than half following the pre-announcement of the policy, so that by 2022, when the levy was actually implemented, it had already fallen to less than three percent. This challenges the argument that logistical advancements were the main driver of the shift.

The environmental levy was designed to narrow the price gap for green ice packs, effectively making it nearly twice as expensive to continue using plastic gel blocks, which are typically cheaper than water-based ones.

In the hypothetical scenario of imposition, SSG, a nationwide supermarket chain operating both online and offline, would have paid an amount equivalent to 39% of its total ice pack costs in 2021 had it increased gel consumption. As for NH Hanaro, the company would have had to pay a levy equivalent to 41% of its pack purchase expenses in 2021 when it reduced gel consumption from 72 to 41 percent.