🔗 Share this article

The lush tropical forest 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 almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following one of the worst ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its patents and processes – all required components to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated levels of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous of residents had been subjected through potable water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades 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 related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of malignancies, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests indicated elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor 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 ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to companies 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 fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, dyes, beauty products and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near manufacturing facilities. But although 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 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 performed research in various regions. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge polluted water straight into the streams.” Environmental authorities have issued several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a proposal to ban the production, import and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. 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 think that this issue should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to move in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed 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 unsafe environment for generations.

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