🔗 Share this article

The lush tropical forest and rust-red elevations of Lote, located on India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it comes from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an region home to 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution 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?

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and processes – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and wooded areas. And the plant has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been subjected through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, showed among the top levels of PFAS documented in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, 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 linked to increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are the children of all.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the company was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as 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, colorants, cosmetics and other products.

Regulatory Context

Investigations demonstrate that concentrations of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in various regions. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

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 fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

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

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and factories release contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to prohibit the production, importation and utilization of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in countries where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with Pfas production are expected to impact communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”