“Close the poison factory”: in India thousands of people march against PFAS (produced by the former Miteni plant)

It was 2018 when the Miteni factory in Trissino, Veneto, closed its doors, marking the end of one of the darkest pages in Italian industrial history. Its production of PFAS, the infamous “forever chemicals,” has contaminated (and continues to contaminate) the waters, air and lives of hundreds of thousands of people, leaving behind a trail of disease, suffering and poisoned landscapes.

But, as often happens with the longest shadows, Miteni’s story did not stop at the border of Italy. In 2019, following the bankruptcy and conviction of its former managers, the plant was sold, dismantled and, incredibly, rebuilt in India.

We talked about it here: PFAS: the Miteni plant that contaminated the Veneto region sold to India to produce the same poisons

There, a Lote Parshuramwhere the green countryside meets the west coast, Miteni’s equipment and production processes have come back to life under the control of the Indian company Laxmi Organic Industries. The goal? Continue producing those same perfluoroalkyl substances, without any apparent concern for the terrible consequences they had caused in Europe.

The peaceful march to demand the closure of the plant

In 2025, in Lote Parshuram, the machines began to roar again, a sign of the return of an invisible threat, ready to spread like a silent poison in the waters, in the soil and in the lives of the inhabitants. The Indian reality almost seemed to resemble that experienced by Venetian citizens: a population that, unaware, risked becoming the victim of another ecological disaster.

And so the protests broke out and in the last few hours around 3,000 people marched through the streets of Lote Parshuram, loudly demanding the closure of the plant. The voices were raised together, united by the fear that the poison, now known, could happen again, this time away from the international spotlight, but no less devastating.

That peaceful march, followed by concrete actions such as sampling residents’ water and blood, represents a symbol of a battle that transcends borders. It is a struggle that unites mothers all over the world, those who do not want to give up on a polluted and uncertain future.

But as the protest grows, the Lote Parshuram plant continues to operate. What happened in Veneto, with the toxic legacy left by Miteni, should not be repeated. But as the world watches, PFAS pollution risks spreading, touching other lands, other lives. The battle being fought today in Lote Parshuram is not just a fight for a healthier environment in India: it is a global battle, which involves us all. Because chemicals forever know no boundaries, and their shadow extends, inexorably, across our entire planet.

We can’t stand by and watch.