🔗 Share this article To Which Location Will a Western Manufacturing Facility Which Polluted Drinking Water Move On? Heading to India The lush tropical forest and rust-red hills of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky. The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for polluting water sources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the local tribunal 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? And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and processes – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again. An Environmental Burden Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high levels of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through potable water. The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, displayed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti. Ex-employee Ilario Ermetti showed a high concentration of PFAS in his blood. High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to increased risk of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders 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, began mobilizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was shocked. “As mothers, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.” Corporate Transition Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”. Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse. Although 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 firm was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment. Strategic Expansion By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing 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 firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC. Since early 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 global focus is growing, in India the matter is not on the political agenda yet. “Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “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.” Regional Consequences Parineeta Dandekar, head of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this area totally deteriorated,” she said. The industrial area is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints. “Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the plant cannot function and industries discharge polluted water directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in recent years. International Ramifications In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to prohibit the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I believe that this issue should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.” Persistent Threats Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations. “The area has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”