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A UK company has sparked controversy online for selling glass
bottles filled with the “freshest coastal air” for up to $105
per bottle.
Coast Capture Air started bottling fresh air and selling it as a
souvenir and a talking point about the importance of clean air
in the modern era, but then people from polluted areas of the
world reportedly started buying these bottles for practical
purposes, inhaling the clean coastal air every day. They told
the company that it helped counter the harmful effects of air
pollution, so it kept selling it and even attached a price tag
that seems staggering for what is essentially an empty glass
bottle – £75 ($105).
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To be fair, Coast Capture Air is far from the only company in the world
selling people air. You’ve probably heard of brands like Vitality Air,
which sell canned fresh air from the Canadian Rocky Mountains, or Air de
Montcuq, which sells air from the French countryside. These are just two
of the many canned or bottled air businesses we’ve covered in the past,
but what sets Coast Capture Air apart from most of them is the price.
Over $100 for a 700ml bottle filled with air seems preposterous; in
fact, it’s so expensive that I am still not convinced that it’s a
genuine product. That said, Coast Capture Air does point out that its
staff goes to great lengths to make sure that they only bottle the
finest coastal air in all of Cornwall.
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“Each Coast Capture Air signature glass bottle holds fresh coastal air
in its purest form, direct from the natural and unspoiled coast lines of
Great Britain,” the company’s website reads. “Our select Air capturing
locations are typically rural, unpolluted by man or machinery and often
remote and hard to reach. Such idylls are rare. Our Collections are
therefore of precious and exceptional quality. Bottled at source:
Hartland Point, Cornish Coast, Great Britain.”
“We travel the length and breadth of Great Britain. We visit remote
locations of outstanding natural beauty. From here we capture only the
cleanest air,” Coast Capture Air claims. “Many factors set us apart from
similar companies. We monitor and measure every single bottle we
capture. We use highly sensitive equipment to ensure the purity of each
bottle. Our captures are therefore both unique and of the very highest
quality.”
Interestingly, the Coast Capture Air website even has a section
detailing the best way to inhale its selection of fresh coastal air.
Apparently, you should find a nice, quiet place, clear your nasal cavity
by blowing your nose, breathe from the diaphragm, not from your chest,
and make sure to put the cork back after you inhale, to keep the
expensive contents from escaping. That’s actually the short version, the
long instructions are 10 bullet points-long.
At up to $105 per bottle, Coast Capture Air is the second most expensive
bottled air we’ve ever come across. The number one spot goes to Genuine
Mountain Air from Switzerland, a business founded by an English expat,
which sells Swiss mountain air collected from a secret location in the
Alps for a whopping $167 per bottle.
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