Opinion | Toxic Migration, From Italy's Vicenza To The Konkan Coast In Maharashtra |
In December 2022, I discussed ‘Fighting climate change the Bharat way – Vedas hold the key’ highlighting how our ancient wisdom teaches us to live in harmony with nature. Today, it is deeply troubling to see that the same moral grounding that could protect our land and people is being ignored.
The industrial machinery that contaminated aquifers in Italy’s Veneto is now reportedly operating at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, threatening the ecologically sensitive Konkan coast and the health of its communities.
The site began full production of PFAS-type fluorochemicals in early 2025, used in products like pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, and cosmetics. Essentially, a technology once shut down in Europe for environmental contamination and severe health risks is now active in Bharat, despite the country lacking comprehensive PFAS-specific regulation.
The brutal truth is that human arrogance believes profit and technical cleverness can outrun moral responsibility. Cloaked in technological sophistication and globalised commerce, this arrogance has resurfaced in a more insidious form today, treating human life and ecological integrity as expendable.
Bharat now faces a test: will we allow history to repeat itself, or will the moral wisdom of our dharmic heritage guide us to reject such preventable harm?
The story of Miteni SpA is a travelogue of modern industrial sin, revealing that toxic enterprises do not die when confronted by regulation, public outrage, or courts of law — they just migrate. What began in the industrial valleys of Trissino, near Vicenza in Italy, has cast its shadow on the Konkan coast of Bharat, writing human life off as an acceptable cost of profit.
Founded in the post-war boom, Miteni became a specialist producer of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) chemicals, prized for their resistance to heat, water, and oil and marketed as indispensable to modern convenience. These were embedded in non-stick coatings,........