Uses for medical shipping ice packs?

[LCBMAX]

Hi thrifty friends -

any thoughts on good ways to reuse medical shipping ice packs?

They are all in fairly sturdy plastic casings, and mostly rectangular or square. Most are filled with a substance unknown: "reusable gel filled", and 5 are like plastic tofu boxes (hard bottom, rippable top) with soft styrofoam inside instead of tofu: "foam bricks".

We have about 20!

We'll keep 5 for lunch bags and bringing home groceries, will try to give away others for the same use by friends, but what to do with the remaining????? (If all else fails, I'll store them til the ones in use break down, but would rather not hoard...)

Thanks in advance!

Edited by LCBMAX - 8/24/11 at 8:39am

[I Fly]

We keep some in the freezer to throw into any cooler or lunchbag that needs to stay cold.  We have 4, but I wish we had more!!