🔗 Share this article

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

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water resources in an region home to 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

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

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and methods – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated 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 employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, 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 associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the blood are linked to increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

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

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to investors. Records of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives downplayed environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. According to a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, manufacturing substances that will be used in pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and other products.

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that concentrations of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, especially near manufacturing facilities. But even though global focus is growing, in India the matter is not on the political agenda yet.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies 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 established in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this region 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 malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant cannot function and industries discharge polluted water straight into the streams.” Environmental authorities have sent multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a proposal to prohibit the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This attention may be pushing the sector to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I think that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to move in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to Pfas production are expected to impact populations that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”