Bottled Water & Cell Phones

       A good friend and I would always joke about how the world would be without cell phones and bottle water. It was partly a joke and partly a sarcastic glimpse into the social direction we all are taking. Today I really wonder the answer to that question. Just what would the world be like without cell phones and bottle water?
       I was sitting in the airport waiting to catch my plane when I noticed within thirty minuets I saw and heard ten different phone calls. I found out that Jack was catching a plane to a wrestling competition and decided to call his friend Bob only to find Bob in bed resting a hangover for the prior night. Jack proceeded to tell Bob about how easy it was to have Dorothy become his love salve. It appears that Dorothy is very talented with her mouth.
       There was Jim who made two phone calls to business contacts about real estate deals coming up in San Diego and New Mexico. Jim was planning to see Joe at breakfast for a survey of the deal in San Diego. If they were lucky a round of golf would be on the agenda. While talking to Tom in New Mexico Jim was telling of a possible undercutting of another agent that is making a proposal to the clients there.
       There was a guy talking to his dad on the phone about the family and there was a young lady talking to her friend. I could tell the young lady was very bored with the waiting and needed to talk to anyone rather than sitting quietly waiting alone. In all I saw eight people in the small waiting lounge make ten phone calls.
       Upon arriving home I had to run into a Wal-mart to exchange something and while waiting in line I observed ten people within fifteen minuets walk into the store with a phone attached to their ears. I don’t know what they would do if that technology was not available. Would people stay closer to one another with less distance between them?
       That does not count the multitudes I see while driving who are yakking on the phone while driving their cars. One hand on the phone and the other on the wheel, and their mind on everything but driving. For the months of April - December 2001, the California Highway Patrol attributed at least 4,699 crashes, 2,786 injuries, and 31 deaths to cell phones. Since the stats were only collected for nine months, the LA Times* reports that the number of crashes for the entire year could be well over 6,000.
       Aside form the lack of privacy as I along with the rest of the world hearing your conversations, I hear vulgar words, unconstructive observations of others character and if I were smart enough I could extract insider information from others open diatribes. There is also a safety issue here as we place our minds on something other than what we are doing. At lease sitting in a phone booth or sitting with the phone at home keeps you safer.
       And then there are those millions upon millions of water bottles. “Billions of Plastic Water Bottles Tossed In Trash” “Surge in Bottled Water Popularity Threatens Environment” are quotes from the California Department of Conservation 29may03. Plastic does not degrade and just becomes more trash to stuff into our overfilled landfills.
       Once, most Americans got their water only from the tap. Now, they're often buying their water in a bottle. At work, after a workout, or just about any time, Americans are drinking bottled water in record numbers--a whopping 5 billion gallons in 2001, according to the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), an industry trade group. That's about the same amount of water that falls from the American Falls at Niagara Falls in two hours.
       "Generally, over the years, the FDA has adopted EPA standards for tap water as standards for bottled water," according to Henry Kim, Ph.D., a supervisory chemist at the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.. As a result, standards for contaminants in tap water and bottled water are very similar. So just what are you getting from bottle water?
       As the prices of gas climbs to the sky and we complain about the cost, we don’t consider just what we are paying for something that we can get from a drinking fountain anywhere for free. And we are paying! We are paying for water which is technically free. We are also paying with the pollution that the plastic bottles are causing. In the week when the House of Commons, home of the British parliament, was shown to be spending over £11,000 (US$20,000) on bottled water last year - water that would have cost only £25 out of the tap - experts have questioned the quality, labeling, advertising and environmental cost of the bottled stuff.
        Where would we be without bottled water and cell phones?

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