Dry ice in a cooler works — but it can wreck your cooler if you're careless

Dry ice in a cooler is fine and actually better than regular ice for keeping things frozen. But it’s cold enough to crack plastic and dangerous enough to hurt you if you treat it like normal ice.

The big issue is temperature. Dry ice sits at -109°F, and most cooler plastic gets brittle in the cold. If you toss dry ice directly against the walls, it can crack or shatter the liner, especially on cheaper coolers. Put a layer of cardboard or foam between the dry ice and the cooler walls and you avoid that problem entirely. Wrap the dry ice in newspaper or paper bags too — it’ll last longer and keep it from direct contact with your stuff.

Second issue: pressure. Dry ice turns straight into CO2 gas, and it expands a lot. If you seal the cooler airtight, pressure builds up and the lid can bulge, crack, or pop off. Just leave the drain plug open or crack the lid slightly. The gas is heavier than air and will settle in low spots, so don’t leave a sealed cooler with dry ice in your car — that’s a suffocation risk, not just a cooler risk.

Also: don’t touch dry ice with bare hands, it causes frostbite fast. And keep it away from cans and bottles — it will freeze and burst them. Basically, treat it like an industrial tool, not a party trick.

Do this right and a cooler with