SHANGHAI, Feb 4 (AP) -- China's biggest city has set up a collection station for dead pets, hoping to prevent health hazards from the haphazard disposal of deceased dogs, cats and birds, a newspaper reported Friday.

Pets have grown increasingly popular in Shanghai, an overcrowded city of more than 20 million people, most of them apartment dwellers with no space to b ury a dead animal. Some dead pets are thrown in the garbage and others into local rivers, posing a health threat, the Shanghai Daily reported.

For 5 yuan (60 U.S. cents, 50 euro cents) bereaved owners now can drop pet remains at a downtown collection center, where they will be kept in an ice storage container with a capacity of 5 tons, it said.

Once a week the contents are to be sent to a suburban pet incinerator.

For about 200 yuan (US$24; €20) the center will arrange for pet remains to be buried, with a tombstone, in a suburban pet cemetery, it said.