Where does a western chemical plant that contaminated drinking water go next? To India

By Gianluca Liva, Filippo Tommasoli, Anna Violato and Marta Frigerio | The Guardian | October 31, 2025

Read the full article by Gianluca Liva, Filippo Tommasoli, Anna Violato and Marta Frigerio (The Guardian)

"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..

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."