Weird Looking Ice Cubes from Bag of Ice :?

Question

The other day, while grocery shopping at Walmart, my mom bought a bag of ice. When we got home, a few of the ice cubes looked kinda blackish/grayish, so they were discarded. But we started noticing after drinking something, there would be weird looking stuff that had settled in the bottom of the cup. It looked like metallic shavings. Could this have been something else? And if they are metallic shavings, can they cause a person symptoms after being ingested? Any help would be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

From the sounds of your description of things, the first ice cubes were indeed "infected" with a contaminant. The best thing to have done would have been to have looked to see if the bag of ice had a phone number to call for questions or comments. The next best thing would have been a trip back to Wal-Mart to return the bag and get another bag of ice somewhere else. Anyways, from the description of things, the ice probably had some left over (yes, it does happen in a moist environment!) mold and mildew from the last time the ice machines were cleaned. As to the metallic stuff, I'd have to say it was very likely aluminum particles left over from when the internal condensers and ice shaping trays were cleaned. See, sometimes these machines are cleaned using rather abrasive materials and aren't completely rinsed using high pressure hot water sprayers BEFORE they restart them. Even then, the companies sometimes don't re-start the coolers quickly enough to prevent mold and mildew from building up inside BEFORE they make more ice too.