ILVA: an environmental case

A history of conflicts and failures: the Ilva case might be summarized like that. The Ilva steel plant, located just outside the city of Taranto, is a big polluter, but also a provider for thousands of jobs. In 2012 criminal judges seized core parts of the factory, in order to shut it down; the Italian Government intervened in order to overcome the seizure and its effects. The citizens of Taranto are torn between the anxiety for their health, jeopardized by the industrial activities, and the concern for their economic future, should the plant be closed. Failures are evident in the persisting unsustainability of the environmental, social and economic crises. In this context, lack of reliable and coherent information and problematic public participation has made things worse, delaying and altering the awareness of the local community and, in the end, procrastinating the adoption of incisive measures