🔗 Share this article Where Does a European Manufacturing Facility That Contaminated Drinking Water Go Next? To India The lush tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands under the open sky. The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an region inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were convicted at the local tribunal of environmental damage and other charges and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated. Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes And yet, the entire operational setup, its patents and processes – all required components to produce forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production. An Environmental Burden Once known for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high concentrations of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of residents had been exposed through drinking water. The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti. Former Miteni worker Ilario Ermetti showed a high concentration of Pfas in his blood. High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure. Public Apprehensions Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was stunned. “Being parents, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are the children of all.” Corporate Transition After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, 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 directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. According to a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse. Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant 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 requests for comment. Growth Plans By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to secure validation on the standard of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches 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, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and other products. Environmental Oversight Investigations have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is increasing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority. “If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities 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 these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.” Local Impact 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 fisher folk communities in this area totally deteriorated,” she said. The chemical district is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints. “Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the site in the past few years. Global Implications In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to ban the production, import and utilization of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the academic institution. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence that these global corporations have to move in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.” 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 linked to PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact populations that are facing an hazardous setting for generations. “The area has seen enough ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”