China's efforts to ban and limit the use of organic pollutants such as dioxin that have sustained destructive effect on the environment has had a fresh boost with the inauguration of a Sino-Canadian laboratory on dioxin in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province.

The new laboratory, which was launched on Monday at a cost of 7.63 million yuan (US$922,000), is jointly sponsored by Zhejiang Province and Alberta of Canada, said Yang Jing, deputy head of Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Health.

The Canadian side has provided financial and technological support, as well as personnel training, Yang said.

According to the Zhejiang Provincial Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), which oversees the laboratory, the new establishment will provide dioxin analysis and testing service involving chemical products, environmental samples, foodstuffs and fodder. Analysis of dioxin residue in fresh-water fish has already begun.

China and 89 other countries signed and adopted the Stockholms Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in May 2002, pledging to ban and control the use of POPs. Dioxin is one of the 12 key POPs listed in the convention.

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2004)