There’s barely anything today that cannot be packaged and sold today, and air is no exception. A Canadian startup, Vitality Air, has been retailing bottled air, more in the sense of a novelty, but the residents of Beijing seem to see this of more of a utility, emptying their wallets to get their hands on a bottle.
Beijing, of course, is in the middle of a crisis with skyrocketing pollution forcing the administration to close schools and ask people to stay at home as much as possible.
As a way of countering the system, the demand for bottled air in China has sharply risen and people are willing to pay much as $14 for a bottle.
Founder Moses Lam told Global News “We shipped a sample of 500 [bottles] to China...they sold out within a week-and-a-half.” Their next shipment is expected to be around 4,000 bottles.
The company is charging around $14 for a vial that contains just three litres of compressed Alberta air. According to reports the air bottle has enough oxygen which is enough for 80 breathes.
Reports say that an average adult takes between 12 and 20 breaths every minute. This means that for a person a bottle will last a mere 4 minutes.
Though, if you buy in bulk, the air bottle comes relatively cheaper with a 7.7 litre bottle going for about $23.
The startup isn’t bottling just any air though, they are bottling the pure air of the Rocky Mountains from Banff and Lake Louise that native Albertans and tourists from around the globe have been enjoying for ages.
This is not the first time that similar news come in from Beijing. In 2013, a Chinese multimillionaire Chen Guangbiao, sold pop-sized cans of air purportedly taken from less populated provinces of China and sold it at relatively lower cost, at 5 yuan each.
Will Delhi be next?
BW Reporters
Simar Singh is one of the youngest members of the BW team. A fresh graduate from IIMC, she also holds a degree in political science from LSR. She enjoys covering power, startups, lifestyle and a little bit of tech.
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