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The lush green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is far from new: it comes from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for polluting water sources in an area inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

What are PFAS, how toxic are they and how do you become exposed?

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and processes – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been subjected through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a catalog of health issues related to PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the blood are linked to increased risk of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after learning her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. According to a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan clearly outlined the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, producing chemicals that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, especially near manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in different states. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant cannot function and industries discharge polluted water straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the production, importation and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the industry to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this issue should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are expected to impact populations that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.

“That region has experienced sufficient ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”