The lush green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.
The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it comes from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for polluting water resources in an region 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?
Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to produce forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to resume PFAS production.
Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous of inhabitants had been exposed through potable water.
The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, showed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I looked at a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.
High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to increased risk of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.
Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being transferred to India, she was shocked.
“As mothers, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”
After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary 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. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives downplayed ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.
Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. Per a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the company went bankrupt.
While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.
By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to firms 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, manufacturing substances that will be used in pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, beauty products and additional goods.
Studies have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.
“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”
Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator 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 area completely collapsed,” she said.
The industrial area is dependent on 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 the countryside, the facility cannot function and industries discharge polluted water directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.
In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to ban the production, importation and utilization of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these global corporations have to relocate in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”
Miteni has shut 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 likely to affect populations that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.
“That region has seen enough ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”
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