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The lush green jungle and rust-red elevations of Lote, located on India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its equipment is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an area home to 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.

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

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and wooded areas. And the factory has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its expertise in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed among the top levels of PFAS documented in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after learning her children’s blood showed high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

“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 acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch 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 heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Records of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s management minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

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 fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, beauty products and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But even though global focus is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the livelihood of fishing populations in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and industries discharge polluted water directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to ban the manufacture, import and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the sector to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and machinery have been relocated to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to move in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are likely to affect communities that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s always a risk.”