🔗 Share this article

The dense tropical forest and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.

The factory 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 environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for polluting water sources in an region inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

What are PFAS, how toxic are they and how do you become exposed?

And yet, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and processes – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of residents 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 one of the highest concentrations of PFAS documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I looked at a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the bloodstream are associated with increased risk of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after learning her children’s blood showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was stunned.

“As mothers, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives downplayed environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. Per a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

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 specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for agrochemicals, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Studies demonstrate that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around production sites. But even though international attention is increasing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

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

“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 fails to operate and factories release polluted water straight into the streams.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the site in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the manufacture, import and utilization of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the sector to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this issue should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s production, patents and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in countries 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 contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“The area has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”