Wish you could be sitting by a beach somewhere, inhaling the fresh sea breeze while soaking your feet in the water - but the COVID-19 pandemic is dampening your plan?

Fret not, you can still get bottled fresh air from the coast off UK for about RM430 (US$105) a pop, thanks to UK-based company Coast Capture Air.

According to a report in Oddity Central, the company started bottling fresh air and selling it as a souvenir to raise awareness and start conversations about the importance of air quality, but following high demand from people from polluted areas who said they inhaled the bottled fresh air every day to counter the harmful effects of air pollution, the sales model went mainstream.

In its website, Coast Capture Air claims that its workers go to "great lengths" to make sure they only bottle the finest coastal air in Cornwall, UK.

"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.

"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," the website reads.

The company further claims that it is set apart from similar companies in the business, in a sense that the air it bottles are collected using highly sensitive equipment to ensure the purity of air in each bottle. All the bottles are also monitored and measured, it adds.

Coast Capture Air's website has a list of various types of bottles it sells, and the cheapest bottled air starts at RM342 (US$83).

As presposterous as this may sound, Coast Capture Air is not the first company in the world that makes a killing selling bottled air. Similar businesses include Vitality Air, which sells canned fresh air from the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and Air de Montcuq, which sells air from the French countryside.

So if you are itching to go travelling again, but cannot do so due to the pandemic, head to the company's website to splurge your hard-earned cash on some transparent glass with "fresh coastal air" inside.


Source: Oddity Central, The Guardian
Photo source: Coast Capture Air website