Abstract

The article analyses some recent events related to the envinromental problems of the Ilva steel complex in Taranto. In our opinion, the facts show that there is no necessary adverse relationship between technological developments in the steel sector and the quality of the environment in the areas that lie around this steel complex. These conclusions are in sharp contrast with the suggestions put forward by the owners of the Ilva company, the Riva family. In fact, the devastation of the Taranto area was mainly due in the past to the deliberate actions carried forward by the same family, that did not care at all for the problems related to the air, soil and water pollution originated by their day-to-day decisions ; at the same time, the public bodies, both at central and regional level, ignored the issue. At present, the necessary restructuring of the Ilva group at the environmental, as well as at the marketing, finance and organization levels, cannot be accomplished in a convincing way without a strong intervention by some big international company operating in the same business, albeit in agreement with the italian State bodies.