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
Well, it depends on the pathogen in question.
Most viral particles quickly become non-viable on a dry non-porous surface with no host.
A lot of pathogenic bacteria will, too.
But some can survive in the environment without a host, or can ensporulate (basically dry up and form an impermeable coating that preserves dormant genes and cell machinery).
* One particularly nasty example of spore-forming bacteria would be [C. botulinum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_botulinum), the bacterium responsible for botulism.
* Botulinum toxin is ounce-for-ounce one of the deadliest biological agents we know of.
* C. botulinum is a common soil bacterium that gets on random surfaces all the time. It *typically* only produces toxin when it’s active and reproducing/living in an anaerobic environment (like a jar of honey, or a jar of green beans that didn’t get hot enough to kill the spores during canning and doesn’t have enough salt or acid to inhibit bacterial reproduction).
* Another spore-former would be the dreaded [C. difficile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridioides_difficile), which can cause some very nasty diahhreal illness, especially in guts that lack well-developed flora of their own – like a young infant’s – or where broad-spectrum antibiotics have weakened the existing gut biome.
Diahrreal illness is a leading cause of infant mortality. It’s worse in countries with poorly-developed sanitation (where contaminated water might be used for formula) and poor access to healthcare, but industrial countries aren’t immune. It’s probably best not to risk contaminating breast milk by opening them with an unwashed implement.
The point is, you’re not going to sterilize it in soap and water, either, but your odds of NOT introducing a pathogen to your baby’s relatively naive system are much better if you give soap and water a shot at dissolving debris and washing those spores down the drain before you use the scissors on the bag.
No water and soap? No alcohol? How about heat? Boil them or even hold them over a lit match if you’re in a pinch out in the wild
Just chiming in to remind you that there are literally poop particles all over your house, not just the bathroom.
The world is a dirty place.
So don’t worry about perfect cleanliness so much.
Is noone going to ask why they are opening a bag of breastmilk in a school classroom? Is this a daycare?
I don’t think i saw this connected but some microorganisms will excrete waste that could be toxic to us, so even if the bacteria were dead there can still be something left behind
[removed]
Pathogens can stay dormant for a really long time and as soon as the environment is favorable again they become active and reproduce
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.
Spores and extremophiles are the keywords you are looking for. The very reason that they survived in such low nutrient environment makes them brutal as living organisms.
Aside from just bacteria, there might be something toxic on the scissors. Or the bacteria maybe popped out toxins then died (like with rotting food).
That toxic stuff won’t die because it’s not alive, it’s just a harmful chemical compound.
Latest Answers