Where does a western chemical plant that contaminated drinking water go next? To IndiaThe thick green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, on Indi...

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Where does a western chemical plant that contaminated drinking water go next? To IndiaThe thick green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, on Indi...
Where does a western chemical plant that contaminated drinking water go next? To India
The thick green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, on India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it comes from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an area where 350,000 people live. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the Vicenza court of assizes of causing environmental pollution and other charges and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

PFAS foam gathers at the the Van Etten Creek dam in Oscoda township, Michigan, near Wurtsmith Air Force Base.
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And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and processes – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between villages and groves of trees. And the factory has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

The silos of now-shuttered Miteni factory, a chemical plant accused of knowingly contaminating the water of hundreds of thousands of people in Trissino, near Vicenza, northern Italy on February 6, 2025.
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The silos of now-shuttered Miteni factory, a chemical plant accused of knowingly contaminating the water of hundreds of thousands of people in Trissino, near Vicenza, northern Italy on February 6, 2025. Photograph: Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images
Once known for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high concentrations of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through drinking water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, showed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “When the story came to light, I looked at a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Attached link

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/31/miteni-factory-pfas-plant-italy-india

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