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The dense green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, lead to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its equipment is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for contaminating water sources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and other charges and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

Nevertheless, 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 vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous of residents had been subjected through potable water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, showed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS documented in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

“As mothers, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets 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 commence manufacturing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Studies demonstrate that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. But even though global focus is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established 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 always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in the countryside, the facility cannot function and industries discharge polluted water straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the site in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a proposal to ban the manufacture, import and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be pushing the sector to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect populations that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”