🔗 Share this article To Which Location Does a Western Chemical Plant Which Polluted Drinking Water Go Next? Heading to India The lush green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a industrial facility stands under the open sky. This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is not: it comes from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following among the most severe ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water resources in an region home to 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and other charges and sentenced to jail, 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 intellectual property and methods – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between villages and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to resume PFAS production. A Toxic Legacy Once known for its specialism in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of inhabitants had been subjected through drinking water. The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years 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. Former Miteni worker Ilario Ermetti had elevated levels of Pfas in his blood. High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to increased risk of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation. Community Concerns Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was shocked. “Being parents, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.” Corporate Transition Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder 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 recent purchase to shareholders. Transcripts of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s management downplayed ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating 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 entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in jail. According to a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the company went bankrupt. Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries. Strategic Expansion By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as 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 pesticides, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and other products. Regulatory Context Studies have shown that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, especially near manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is increasing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority. “Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities as of today,” 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 very few of them.” Regional Consequences Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, 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 industrial area is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints. “Nearby communities 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 fails to operate and industries release polluted water directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the site in recent years. International Ramifications In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to prohibit the production, importation and utilization of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This attention may be pushing the sector 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, patents and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence that these multinationals have to move in nations where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.” Ongoing Risks Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are expected to impact communities that are facing an unsafe environment for years to come. “The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”