I have a pair of scissors that’s been in a mostly unopened cabinet for 5+ years. I wanted to cut open a bag of breastmilk with clean scissors but water and soap aren’t readily accessible at the moment.
The cabinet is in a former classroom so presumably the scissors were used by kids. My husband says using the scissors wouldn’t be sanitary. I believe him, but honestly I don’t understand why with time and no food the bacteria wouldn’t just die.
EDIT: I should have used the term sanitary not sterile. My baby is old enough that we don’t sanitize pump and bottle parts daily, just wash and dry after uses.
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It is actually possible they are self-sanitizing.
Many metals have an [oligodynamic effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligodynamic_effect), meaning they can self-sanitize over time. The details depend on the metals, the concentration on the object, and the time. Stainless steel usually is not, but nickel does have the effect.
Historically, it’s why sailors would drop some silver and copper coins into the water barrels before setting sail, the copper and silver coins have natural anti-microbial properties that kill the germs in the water.
It’s also why common doorknobs don’t transmit much disease, they’re almost always made of self-sanitizing metals so they kill the germs in a few hours.
If they’re plain stainless steel they could be covered in bacteria, but if they were nickel plated — which is pretty common for good scissors — they could have self-sanitized years ago.
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