To Which Location Does a European Manufacturing Facility Which Polluted Water Supplies Go Next? To India
The dense green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands against the sky.
The factory is almost brand new, but its equipment is far from new: it originates from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following among the most severe ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for polluting water resources in an region inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal 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 processes – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between local communities and wooded areas. And the factory has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.
An Environmental Burden
Once known for its specialism in developing processes 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. Numerous of residents had been exposed through potable water.
The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS ever recorded in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a catalog of health issues related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.
Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the blood are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.
Community Concerns
Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was shocked.
“Being parents, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are the children of all.”
Business Shift
Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to EU regulations”.
Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. 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 reveals that in March 2018 the company was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.
Growth Plans
By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.
From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, beauty products and other products.
Regulatory Context
Investigations demonstrate that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.
“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in different states. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”
Regional Consequences
Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, 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 completely collapsed,” she said.
The chemical district is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.
“The local villages have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a frequent event in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and industries release polluted water directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the site in recent years.
International Ramifications
In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to ban the production, importation and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be pushing the industry to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and machinery have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”
Persistent Threats
Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.
“The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s always a risk.”