In late 2025, a cross-border team of journalists released Inside the Global Trade that Moves PFAS Downstream investigation.
They traced the afterlife of Italy’s Miteni chemical plant which – following one of Europe’s worst PFAS pollution scandals – appears to have been dismantled, shipped to India, and reassembled in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district. The same “forever chemicals” that poisoned Veneto’s water and soil were quietly restarting production under a different flag.
The revelations underline a global problem: when regulations tighten in Europe, pollution is often not being solved, only relocated. In Italy, the Miteni scandal led to criminal prosecutions and a public health emergency. In India, the lack of specific PFAS regulations has created a loophole where hazardous production can occur without clear legal boundaries.
After the publication, the story became political. MLA Rohit Pawar publicly accused the Ratnagiri plant of using banned Italian equipment and emitting hazardous chemicals. He demanded immediate investigation and permanent closure. These statements forced the state government to respond. Industries Minister Uday Samant denied PFAS production at the facility and promised verification of environmental clearances, framing the issue as a political exaggeration rather than a real threat.
These denials were echoed in parts of the press. Samant stated that he had sought a report from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) after media coverage, and that the MPCB informed him that PFAS chemicals had not been manufactured at the facility “so far”.
However, the investigation addresses this claim directly and in detail. A chemical plant of this kind is composed of five distinct units: three production blocks, each dedicated to a specific class of products; a laboratory, where small-scale synthesis takes place; and a so-called “pilot plant”, where intermediate quantities — typically around 100 kilograms — are produced for testing and commercial evaluation prior to full-scale manufacture.
At this point, Laxmi Organic Industries has produced laboratory samples, pilot-plant quantities, and has shipped these commercial samples to multiple clients. Production has therefore already begun.
Notably, the company has never denied or substantively refuted the investigation’s findings. It has not engaged with the evidence presented and has consistently avoided addressing the issue altogether.
Public reaction in India has been significant. A demonstration took place outside the factory gates in Ratnagiri, where local residents and activists demanded closure of the facility and transparent environmental testing, warning that the region risks becoming a dumping ground for hazardous industries displaced from Europe. Many Indian outlets, bloggers and social media reported it, and local activists demanded closure and transparent testing, warning that the region could become a dumping ground for hazardous industries.
Online, the controversy was framed as environmental colonialism — the export of toxic production from regulated regions to those with weaker oversight.
Dozens of influencers have been producing content related to the investigation.
One video alone reached extraordinary figures — approximately 1.7 million likes on a single Instagram post and 8.5 million likes and nearly 10,000 comments on a Youtube video. Alongside this attention, however, misinformation has spread. The most striking distortion concerns Italy, where “350,000 people potentially exposed” was repeatedly misreported in India as “350,000 deaths”. The error is demonstrably false and highlights how viral amplification can sacrifice accuracy for outrage.
An online petition launched on change.org calls for decisive preventive action to stop the introduction of substances that have already caused severe harm in other countries: “India must not become a destination for chemicals that have been banned elsewhere due to their devastating impacts.”
What remains uncontested is the core finding: hazardous PFAS production linked to one of Europe’s worst pollution scandals has not disappeared. It has moved.
