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.
In: 1190
just FYI soap/water aren’t going to really cut it either – you want bleach or fire.
clean and sanitized are two different states – although for most household use clean is plenty. A thing is clean when you have washed off all of the dirt, dust, and other goop that has attached to a surface. Soap is useful for this because it grabs both oil and water simultaneously, so it’s really good at cleaning things, but it does NOT sanitize. Soap will only wash off about 80-95% (depending on how long/well you wash) of the bacteria, and although it does actively destroy viruses it will only destroy 95-99% of them, which leaves enough behind to cause an infection. This isn’t a problem for an average adult, but for infants you need more caution than that.
To sanitize you need to actively destroy the bacteria/viruses, either chemically (usually via bleach, but there are other options) or via temperature (anything with a visible flame is hot enough) over 5-10 minutes of exposure.
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