ABSTRACT
The 2020 environment strategy aims to upgrade eco-efficiency in the material metabolism. Generally, air quality management in the UK is in an uneasy state of deadlock between policy and practicality. Manchester, the pollution capital of the UK', also contains some of the highest levels of respiratory disease. Air quality management is a classic example of a local problem which exceeds the capability of local solutions. Water quality and supply are dominated by the politics of utility regulation and deregulation. Water forms over 90" of the total material flow through the city-region so the water cycle in many ways is at the forefront of the theory and practice of sustainable development. Sewage and effluent treatment should be an opportunity for completing the nutrient eco-cycle so that organic wastes return safely to the land from which they came. waste and materials consortium to develop materials handling, re-use and re-design for a zero-emission and zero-waste economy.
