Chinese restaurant charges customers for breathing ‘clean air’

The pollution in China is so bad, a restaurant started putting a surcharge on top of customers’ food bills as an “air cleaning fee”.

A restaurant in Zhangjiagang city, in the Jiangsu Province, recently purchased “air filtration machines” following reports of dangerously high pollution levels in the country.

Patrons who dined in the restaurant were unknowingly about to pay for the operational costs, and only found out when they were handed the bill at the end of their meals, according to the South China Morning Post.

A charge of one yuan per customer was added to the food bill, about 10p or $0.15. Customers complained to the local government, who ordered the restaurants owners to halt the illegal charge.

A city official told Xinhua news agency that it was not the diners’ choice to breathe filtered air and therefore it could not be sold as a commodity.

However, the charge was supported on social media, where many said they would happily pay one yuan to be able to breathe easily.

On Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, one user said: “They could have added the extra one yuan to the price of the dishes but they didn’t... there is nothing wrong with charging this extra fee. The kind of dining environment decides the kind of pricing.”

Air pollution in China has reached an all-time high, with a red alert for poisonous smog issued in Beijing. Some of the worst-hit areas have visibility of less than 100m.

Meanwhile, As China’s pollution problems continue, a Canadian company has cashed in on the crisis by selling bottles of fresh mountain air to people for up to $28 (£18.50) each.

Beijing was issued its first ever red alert in December over its hazardous pollution levels, causing the capital to shut down schools and construction for a period of time, while attempting to take a percentage of the city’s cars off the road and telling people to stay indoors.

Since then Shanghai has seen its own smog problem hit its highest level since January, with schools being prompted to ban outdoor activities and factory work curbed on Tuesday.

But sales of Vitality Air - bottles fresh mountain air from Banff and Lake Louise, Canada – have soared in China. A single bottle of the company’s “premium oxygen” costs $27.99 ($18.50) while a bottle of its Banff air costs up to $23.99 ($15.85).

Harrison Wang, Vitality Air’s China representative, told Mail Online that the minute the bottles went on sale in Taobao, a Chinese website similar to eBay for online shopping, they “sold out almost instantly”.

The company started marketing the product in China less than two months ago, but now that the first shipment of 500 bottles is sold out, another of 700 bottles is on its way.