[All links point to Italian sources except where otherwise stated]. On July 26, 2012, six operating facilities at Ilva, Europe's biggest steel plant situated in Taranto, Italy, were put under judicial seizure on the grounds of pollution. This is only the latest chapter of an ongoing struggle involving the plant's high pollution and environmental risks (and related occupational issues). According to Wikipedia [en]: In 1991 Taranto was declared a high environmental risk area by the Ministry of Environment. As a consequence of the poisons discharged into the air by the factories in the area (most notably the ILVA steel plant), Taranto is the most polluted city in Italy and western Europe. Only 7% of Taranto's pollution is inhabitants-related: 93% is factories-related. The European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER) showed that in 2004, estimated dioxin emissions from the ILVA plant were responsible for 83% of Italy's total reported emissions. This is how Davide Maria De Luca describes the current situation: Fondato nel 1961, è un impianto siderurgico a ciclo integrale, dove cioè avvengono tutti i passaggi che dal minerale di ferro portano all’acciaio. Il fulcro della produzione sono i cinque altoforni, dove viene prodotta la ghisa. Ognuno è alto più di 40 metri e ha un diametro tra 10 e i 15 metri: al momento quattro altoforni su cinque sono attivi. The neighborhood of Tamburi, Taranto, opposite from Ilva. © Molnàr, used with permission Emissions-related issues The results of two investigations, undertaken in a trial against the owners and directors of Ilva, showed that over a span of seven years more than 11,000 people died and nearly 27,000 were hospitalized in and around Taranto for conditions whose origin could be linked to the emissions generated by the factory. Due to this, the entire plant may shut down, leaving about 12,000 unemployed in the area of Taranto, a figure which equates to over 30% unemployment; Ilva Taranto is, by itself, responsible for 75% of the area's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and 0.15% of Italy's. The Italian government eventually decided to withdraw a formal complaint against the tribunal's decision to confirm the seizure, announced on August 7, while close to 1,000 people took the streets to acknowledge worker Cataldo Ranieri as leader of the protest against industrial pollution. A reader of newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano explains in these terms the choices that the workers, even before the judges and government, have to make: Morire di lavoro o morire perché non c'è lavoro? Taranto, rally on August 2nd, 2012. © Molnàr, used with permission. Physicist and engineer Filippo Zuliani, from the Centre for Research and Development Tata Steel Europe, writes on his blog: La vicenda dell’ILVA è complessa e dolorosa: da molti anni gli abitanti di Taranto sospettavano (eufemismo) dei problemi causati direttamente o indirettamente dallo stabilimento siderurgico, e le due perizie chimica e medico-epidemiologica disposte dal gip hanno liberato frustrazioni a lungo represse. Il sequestro dell’ILVA ripropone l’annosa dicotomia tra produzione e tutela dell’ambiente. Zuliani adds that when national television news on channel TG3 asked a few workers of Ilva, ‘what would be the better choice: closing the factory or not’, they replied: Non siamo noi che dobbiamo indicare la soluzione, noi rivendichiamo il nostro diritto a lavorare in sicurezza, in un ambiente sano per noi e per le nostre famiglie. For others, worried about the environmental and medical consequences of Ilva's activity, there is no alternative but closing down the plant for good. On Il Fatto Quotidiano, Fabio Balocco writes: Se una fabbrica produce veleni deve essere chiusa, perché prima di tutto, e non lo dico io ma la Corte Costituzionale, viene l’ambiente e la salute. Prima di tutto, anche dell’economia e quindi anche del posto di lavoro. On the other hand there are those who, even acknowledging the seriousness of the environmental situation, support the right to work and side with the workers who are opposing the closure of the plant, asking that the owners and directors of Ilva pay for the damage they caused, investing in the conversion of the factory. Taranto's Ilva, November 2, 2010 @ 22.39. Photo by Ilaria Longo from Facebook Expressing their “solidarity with the fighting workers of Ilva,” La Rete delle Reti writes: Nessuna azienda deve essere chiusa, nessun lavoratore deve essere licenziato, a ogni adulto deve essere assegnato un lavoro utile e dignitoso.