Irradiated mail is mail that has been deliberately exposed to radiation, typically in an effort to disinfect it. The most notable instance of mail irradiation occurred in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks; the level of radiation chosen to kill anthrax spores was so high that it often changed the physical appearance of the mail.
The United States Postal Service began to irradiate mail in November 2001, in response to the discovery of large-scale contamination at several of its facilities that handled the letters that were sent in the attacks.
A facility in Bridgeport, New Jersey, operated by Sterigenics International, uses a Rhodotron continuous wave electron beam accelerator built by IBA Industrial, to irradiate the mail. A few facilities were planning to use cobalt-60 sources, though it is unclear whether this was ever done.
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“Always polite, fastidiously dressed in a linen duster and mask, he used to leave behind facetious rhymes signed “Black Bart, Po—8,” in mail and express boxes after he had finished rifling them.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)