‘This factory kills everything’: the red dust of death in Italy’s under-developed south

A statue at San Brunoni cemetery in Taranto covered with ferrous dust from the neighbouring steel factory. Photograph: Roberto Salomone/The Observer

Every day, Teresa Battista wipes away the thick layers of dust that coat the graves in San Brunone cemetery in Tamburi, a neighbourhood in the south Italian coastal city of Taranto.

Yet despite her best efforts, the cleaner, who has worked at the cemetery for 35 years, has been unable to prevent the marble tombs from developing red scarring – the result of toxic iron-ore dust.