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The lush 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 machinery is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an region inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

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

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property 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, wedged between villages and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been exposed through drinking water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, showed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the blood are linked to increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being sent to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s management minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company founded in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. Per a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the company went bankrupt.

While 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 firm was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

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

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. But although global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in various regions. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a poor ecological history”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a frequent event in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge contaminated effluent straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be driving the sector to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence that these global corporations have to move in nations where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact populations that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”