My personal suggestion would be “realize that the odds are significantly better that you will be struck by lightning on the way to the mailbox than that you will be infected with anthrax from your mail.”
If you need to do something to feel safer, ironing won’t do it.
Technically, a fire is far more likely to oxidize your mail than reduce it. If you really want it reduced to carbon, you need to heat the mail to a high termperature in an oxygen free atmosphere. This will produce a charcoal like substance that is anthrax free.
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Have mail carrier put mail in plastic box. Don’t touch mail. At end of week, put lid on plastic box and set aside, putting out new plastic box. Leave sealed box of mail outside to avoid contaiminating the house. After one more week, if mail carrier is OK, open box and read mail. If mail carrier is sick or dead call 911 for disposal of your mail. Repeat weekly.
I’m not trying to trivialise the OP. I realise that the question wouldn’t have been asked if the OP wasn’t scared.
Simplest answer? Say goodbye to junkmail forever (you know you wanted to do that anyway). Just as you know not to open email attachments from people you don’t know, don’t open letters from people you don’t know or from whom you aren’t expecting correspondence.
And please, please read Lynn’s announcement. There’s a whole internet full of factual information about anthrax out there. Some of us what more detailed scientific information than others.
I’ll add this link to the many others which have already been provided.
A mild bleach solution is exactly what the special environmental cleanup crews are presently using to destroy the anthrax spores in contaminated offices, and officials who actually know what the hell they’re talking about–as opposed to the overwhelming majority of respondents in this nutty thread who are on the verge of hysteria–proclaim bleach quite effective. If the bush leaguers of Snopes want to argue with CDC’s vast array of world-class experts, so be it.
Again, those in the know (CDC, etc.) assert that those who proclaim anthrax indestructible are wrong. Bleach will do the job nicely and antibiotics will treat most infected people. If you’re so inclined, you should be able to sterilize your mail by misting the envelopes with a bleach solution from a spray bottle.
“Scared” is not really the word. I’d say “cautious”.
Loved the “wait a week for the postal carrier to die” suggestion. One piece of advice: he might get a LITTLE insulted when he sees a big pile of mail on your porch. Make sure you leave him a nice Christmas gift if he lives!
Well, not according to the report on ATC this afternoon on the island in the Aral Sea contaminated by anthrax. The Russians tried bleach, and the spores were unaffected. Obviously, they were engineered for biological warfare, and so may be hardier than your average anthrax spores. Then again, we don’t know exactly what these spores are and what (if) they were designed to do.
But I agree, the majority of people, or at least media types, are on the verge of hysteria.
