🔗 Share this article

The lush green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms against the sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its equipment is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for contaminating water sources in an area inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

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

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and methods – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Previously recognized for its expertise in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been subjected through drinking water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of PFAS documented in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the blood are linked to higher chances of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being sent to India, she was stunned.

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

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s management downplayed environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company founded in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in jail. According to a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including 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, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that concentrations of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, particularly around production sites. But although global focus is increasing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“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. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a poor ecological history”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant 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 common occurrence in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge polluted water straight into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the sector to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for years to come.

“The area has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”