The lush tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.
This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is far from new: 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 decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and other charges and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.
Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes
And yet, the entire operational setup, its patents and methods – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between local communities and wooded areas. And the factory has just started to resume PFAS production.
A Toxic Legacy
Once known for its expertise in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high concentrations of PFAS compounds 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 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 reviewed a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.
High levels of Pfas in the bloodstream are associated with higher chances of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.
Community Concerns
Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being sent to India, she was stunned.
“As mothers, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”
Business Shift
Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets 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 the start of 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s executives downplayed ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.
Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the company went bankrupt.
While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the plant in Lote reveals 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 requests for comment.
Strategic Expansion
By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.
From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, pharmaceuticals, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.
Regulatory Context
Studies demonstrate that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. But even though global focus is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.
“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in different states. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”
Regional Consequences
Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.
The chemical district is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.
“The local villages have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have issued several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.
International Ramifications
In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the manufacture, import and utilization of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this issue should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, patents and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the power that these global corporations have to move in nations where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”
Persistent Threats
Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to Pfas production are expected to impact populations that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.
“That region has experienced sufficient ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”
