The lush tropical forest and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a industrial facility stands against the sky.
This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is not: it originates from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an area inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.
What are PFAS, how toxic are they and how do you become exposed?
And yet, the entire operational setup, its patents and methods – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.
An Environmental Burden
Previously recognized for its expertise in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high concentrations of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been exposed through drinking water.
The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, showed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I looked at a catalog of health issues associated with Pfas, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.
Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the blood are linked to higher chances of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.
Public Apprehensions
Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was stunned.
“Being parents, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.”
Business Shift
After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.
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 given six years and four months in prison. According to a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse.
Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.
Strategic Expansion
By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.
From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, manufacturing substances that will be used in agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, beauty products and additional goods.
Environmental Oversight
Investigations have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, especially near production sites. But although global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.
“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in various regions. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”
Regional Consequences
Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fishing populations in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.
The industrial area is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.
“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant cannot function and factories discharge contaminated effluent straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.
International Ramifications
In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to prohibit the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This attention may be pushing the sector to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these global corporations have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”
Ongoing Risks
Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to Pfas production are expected to impact populations that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.
“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”
