Buying Clean Air in a Can
Alberta-based Vitality Air has been cashing in on Beijing’s worsening air quality, selling aluminum cans of “fresh clean air and oxygen” from the picturesque Canadian Rockies for around $10 each. Vitality fills massive cans of compressed air from the Rocky Mountains around Banff and Lake Louise before dispensing it into retail canisters that are shipped worldwide.
Founders Moses Lam and Troy Paquette admitted to Canadian media that the project first started as a joke, selling their first sealable food bag of air for 99 cents on eBay. They launched Vitality Air shortly afterward. “The truth is we’ve begun to appreciate the clean, pure and refreshing taste of quality water,” the website reads. “Air is going the same way.” The business isn’t without precedent given the growth of oxygen bars.
Canned air is now heading to South Korea. Hadong Vitality Air will soon start producing canned pure air under the trademark Jiri, and will be selling it in drugstores across South Korea. The company is a joint venture, being 50% owned by Canadian firm Vitality Air, 10% by distributor SL Biotech, and 40% by the South Korean town of Hadong’s municipality.
Hadong Vitality Air will be capturing the air in a forest area at 700 to 800 meters altitude. The company’s plant then bottles the air per eight liters, which can be inhaled through a built-in mask in the can. For $13, one can fill one’s lungs 160 times with “the most pristine, cypress-flavored forest air.”