🔗 Share this article Where Does a European Manufacturing Facility That Contaminated Drinking Water Go Next? Heading to India The dense green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky. The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated. Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes And yet, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again. An Environmental Burden Previously recognized for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of inhabitants had been exposed through potable water. The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions related to PFAS, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti. Former Miteni worker Ilario Ermetti had elevated levels of Pfas in his blood. Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to increased risk of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure. Community Concerns Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned. “Being parents, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.” Business Shift 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 sole participant in the open sale. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s management downplayed ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to EU regulations”. Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in jail. Per a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the company went bankrupt. While 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 intending to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment. Strategic Expansion By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to secure validation on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC. Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and other products. Environmental Oversight Studies have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But although global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority. “If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s not recognised 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 various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.” Local Impact Parineeta Dandekar, head of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this region totally deteriorated,” she said. The industrial area is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized. “Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and factories discharge contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in recent years. Global Implications In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to ban the production, importation and utilization of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the industry to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to move in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.” Ongoing Risks Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact populations that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come. “The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”