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Chinese Shoppers Are Buying Canned Air from Australia

By:
Ethan Wolff-Mann
2 min read
Chen Guangbiao, Chairman of Jiangsu Huangpu Recycling Resources Co., presents his company's product canned fresh air at Beijing Financial Street on January 30, 2013 in Beijing, China. - ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
Chen Guangbiao, Chairman of Jiangsu Huangpu Recycling Resources Co., presents his company's product canned fresh air at Beijing Financial Street on January 30, 2013 in Beijing, China. ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

Just outside of Sydney, Australia, Bondi beach is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, famous for surfing and Olympic beach volleyball.

It's also one of the places some enterprising Australians are collecting and pressurizing air into cans to be sold in China. And despite this sounding suspiciously similar to a scene from Mel Brooks' 1987 Star Wars parody Spaceballs, people in China are actually buying it.

Green & Clean Air bottles Australian air in a few other locations besides the beach, including the Blue Mountains and the Gold Coast, with each $20 bottle holding around 130 breaths, according to Sydney's 7News. The different locales smell a bit different—the mountains apparently carry a slight perfume of eucalyptus (koala food, after all)—and the beach, well, smells like the beach.

The crazy thing is that this isn't just a novelty product. According to a Chinese personal shopper in Australia interviewed by 7News, the rampant air pollution back home is enough to actually create demand for a breath of the fresh stuff.

This isn't the first time canned air has sold in China. Last year, a Canadian company selling air from the Rockies reportedly was selling out in smog-heavy Chinese cities, and a Chinese recycling magnate handed out canned air in 2013.

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