Where Will a European Manufacturing Facility That Contaminated Water Supplies Move On? To India

The dense green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its machinery is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after among the most severe ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for polluting water resources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

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And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of residents had been subjected through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed among the top levels of PFAS documented in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to increased risk of malignancies, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to shareholders. Records of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and financial misreporting 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 taking business trips to India months before 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 company was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to firms with past business relationships 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, dyes, beauty products and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But although global focus is growing, in India the matter is not on the political agenda yet.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in different states. But this work are limited in scope, 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 poor ecological history”. After it was set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district 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. “During power outages, a frequent event in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and factories release polluted water straight into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have issued multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a proposal to prohibit the manufacture, importation and utilization of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the sector to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I believe that this issue should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these global corporations have to move in countries where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for generations.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”