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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The environment they’re in isn’t sterile, so why would they be sterile? The air itself is carrying spores and bits of life around, and they settle periodically on surfaces, which are generally wetted on a microscopic level.
I’ll add that soap and water doesn’t sterilize either, it’s low-level disinfection; if you didn’t put something in an autoclave, it isn’t sterile.
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