Letters to the Editor: $45 for a bottle to hold water? We’re being scammed

To the editor: I’ll always remember the look of disbelief on my father’s face when he learned in the late 1970s that folks were actually buying water in bottles. Raised in the Great Depression (he was 12 when it began), he said it was a scam, and he scoffed at the fools who fell for it. (“Are you a Stanley or Hydro Flask person? What your water bottle says about you,” Jan. 11)

And then I read The Times article covering “it” water bottles, costing up to $45, that have become precious fashion accessories.

I smiled to myself, raised my glass of water to my beloved deceased father and said, “Cheers, Dad, you were right.”

R. Daniel Foster, Los Angeles

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To the editor: The print edition subheadline says, “The brand of water bottle you carry says a lot about you.”

That is not true. That is just silly. And it is even dangerous. Let’s stop promoting the idea that we have to actually consider our own personal branding when we buy every single thing.

Why not suggest instead that what we happen to own says very little about us, and that we should just use what we have?

Fashion is over. This is the year we start to buy nothing.

Humans are throwing the balance of nature out of whack. Our thinking that the brand of water flask we carry is at all significant is one symptom of our crazy need to buy new stuff and create more waste and emissions.

And in this case, we get to pretend we are being ecologically sound because we are not using single-use plastic.

Dana Cairns Watson, Los Angeles

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To the editor: To distinguish myself from the herd, this old-timer opts for a canteen.

Arnold Tosti, Sunland