🔗 Share this article

The lush tropical forest and rust-red elevations of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a small hill where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its equipment is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an region home to 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were convicted at the local tribunal of environmental damage and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and methods – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high concentrations of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of inhabitants had been subjected through potable water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, displayed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS ever recorded in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a catalog of health issues related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the blood are associated with higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the company was already intending to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to secure validation on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Studies demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this region totally deteriorated,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant cannot function and factories discharge contaminated effluent straight into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a proposal to ban the production, importation and use of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This attention may be pushing the industry to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the academic institution. “I think that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are expected to impact populations that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”