🔗 Share this article Where Does a Western Chemical Plant Which Polluted Drinking Water Move On? To India The lush tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, lead to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky. This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following among the most severe ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for polluting water resources in an area inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses 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 – all required components to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has just started to produce forever chemicals again. An Environmental Burden Previously recognized for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been subjected through drinking water. The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed among the top levels of PFAS documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I looked at a catalog of health issues associated with Pfas, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti. Former Miteni worker Ilario Ermetti had elevated levels of PFAS in his blood. High levels of Pfas in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation. Community Concerns Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests indicated elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned. “As mothers, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.” Business Shift After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By early 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”. 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 convicted of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in prison. Per a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the firm’s collapse. 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 firm was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries. Growth Plans By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC. From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and other products. Regulatory Context Studies demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority. “Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities 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 different states. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.” Regional Consequences 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 set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area totally deteriorated,” she said. The industrial area is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized. “The local villages have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and industries discharge contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the site in the past few years. Global Implications In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the production, importation and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and machinery have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence 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 closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations. “The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s always a risk.”