Hand Phones, Computers and Tablets

Something extremely obvious occurred to me while I was sitting waiting and, therefore, physically unemployed.

The mind wandered off on its own into some dark corner of the establishment where I was temporarily imprisoned in an interminable wait to see some equally bored Government official.

While my mind was over there in the corner peering out at the great unwashed masses seated around me it noted two things:

1.                 That they were equally bored.

2.                 That everything it saw came from the ground.

Number one shall be dealt with later, for the time being we shall be content with looking at Number 2.

From its vantage point over in the corner underneath the seat where an Indian lady of generous proportions was studying her husband’s documents, my mind saw shoes.

The shoes appeared to be leather.

Following that train of thought, the leather came from a cow—or, possibly a sheep, goat or pig. Cow skin is the strongest. Of course, you could always slaughter a horse for its meat and skin but that might raise a clamour among the ‘horsey-people’, they would object to their favourite animal being killed like a common cow. Of course, in India…

The point is that these animals are all herbivores. It is a sad reflection on our society that we are inclined to feed our herbivores with animal’s products ground down into bite-sized chunks as well as stuffing them with petro-chemicals.

Herbivores eat plants, as well you know. Plants grow out of the ground—they are from the earth. Does this make herbivores vegetables? They are only processed grass, really.

But the point is that those shoes were derived from earth—dirt. The earth was processed through plants, into animals and became leather.

Your car started out in the ground. Everything in it was under the surface of the earth at some point. The aeroplane that you go on holiday inside started out underground.

The fuels that drive these machines came from under the ground. We shall not, here, moot the idea that fossil fuels are not, as some scientist(s) have claimed, compressed and antique animals and vegetables but a complete, and separate, mineral unto themselves.

Your hand phone and computers are the same. Anything organic, and there is very little of that, in them came, as did everything else, from under the ground.

Hand phones, computers and tablets contain rare earths. They are called ‘rare earths’ because they are hard to find in commercially viable quantities such as are required for the manufacture of hand phones, computers and tablets. But find them they do, so that you can have the latest technology with which to play games and ‘What’s App’ your friends.

People die getting these rare earths. They are, for the most part, dangerous. Processing them is a toxic procedure that risks communities but, fortunately, these are poverty stricken communities that are disadvantaged with regards to hand phones, computers and tablets.

Around about this point in time, my mind emerged from under the seat that was now occupied by a tall, thin Chinese gentleman who appeared to understand very little of what was going on around him, and soared upwards, out of the building, and into fresh air. Luckiest of minds—I was still stuck in the waiting area.

My mind relayed back another thought.

Why are we still here?

“Look,” it said, “Look at all those cars, lorries, motorcycles, aeroplanes, hand phones, computers and tablets. Look at all those clothes, shoes, bags, watches and watchstraps. We are surrounded—personally and as a group and as a Nation, by manufactured items. Trillions and trillions of socks, rings, necklaces, hand phone cases, steering wheel covers, brushes, buckets, shovels, heaters and air conditioning units.

“Why are we not, all of us, walking on a huge cavern under the ground where all this came from?” it asked me, plaintively.

“Because,’ I replied, somewhat testily I might add, “The ‘cave’ under the ground is full of waste that we throw away on a daily basis. The hole is refilled with discarded hand phones, computers and tablets.”