Pipe cleaner

Special pipe cleaners are manufactured specifically for cleaning out medical apparatus and for engineering applications.

Outside of their originally intended purpose, they are commonly used in crafts, and are also popular for winding around bottle necks to catch drips, bundling things together, as a twist tie, colour-coding, and as a makeshift brush for applying paints, oils, solvents, greases, and similar substances.

Bristles of stiffer material, normally monofilament nylon or polypropylene are sometimes added to better scrub out what is being cleaned.

Craft pipe cleaners are usually made with polyester or nylon pile and are often longer and thicker than the "cleaning" type, and available in many different colors.

Craft pipe cleaners are not very useful for cleaning purposes, because the polyester does not absorb liquids, and the thicker versions may not even fit down the stem of a normal pipe or into the usual hard-to-access area of applications that call for cleaning small bores or tight places.

[6] Workshops in malls and schools in Japan have been led by Atushi Kitanaka on an effort to support the pipe cleaner industry.