🔗 Share this article

The lush green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a factory looms under the open sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is not: it comes from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after among the most severe ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

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

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – 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 recently begun to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated concentrations of Pfas 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 human blood. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the bloodstream are associated with higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, 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 Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are the children of all.”

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company founded in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. Per a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be used in pesticides, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But although global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in different states. But this work are restricted in range, 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 manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and industries release polluted water directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent multiple notices to the site in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a proposal to ban the manufacture, import and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to Pfas production are likely to affect communities that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.

“The area has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s always a risk.”