The lush tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.
This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its machinery is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water sources in an area inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were convicted at the local tribunal 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 methods – all required components 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 just started to produce forever chemicals again.
An Environmental Burden
Once known for its expertise in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high concentrations of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been subjected through potable water.
The worst-affected were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, displayed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a catalog of health issues related to PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.
Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.
Community Concerns
Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.
“Being parents, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”
Corporate Transition
Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives downplayed ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to EU regulations”.
Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established 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 prison. Per a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the company went bankrupt.
Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.
Strategic Expansion
By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, such as 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 utilized for agrochemicals, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and other products.
Environmental Oversight
Studies demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although international attention is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.
“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in different states. But this work are limited in scope, 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 industrial district “has a poor ecological history”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this region totally deteriorated,” she said.
The industrial area is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.
“The local villages have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and factories release contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities 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 ban the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this issue should be investigated, because the reality 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 global corporations have to relocate in countries where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”
Persistent Threats
Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.
“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”
