🔗 Share this article

The lush green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, lead to a small hill where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its equipment is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an region inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were convicted at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, the entire operational setup, its patents and processes – all required components to produce forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Previously recognized for its expertise in developing processes 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 plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been exposed through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “When the story came to light, I looked at a catalog of health issues related to PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the blood are associated with higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests indicated elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as females, our concern has grown,” 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 sole participant in the open sale. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives downplayed ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company founded in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in jail. Per a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already intending to start producing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy 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 indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as 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 pesticides, medicines, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But even though global focus is increasing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in different states. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.

The industrial area is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and factories release contaminated effluent straight into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have issued several warning letters to the plant in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to prohibit the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred to a country 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 environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact populations that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

“That region has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”