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The dense green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it comes from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following one of the worst environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the local tribunal of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

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

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its patents and processes – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and wooded areas. And the plant has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its expertise in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of residents had been exposed through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, showed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a catalog of health issues related to Pfas, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the blood are associated with higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

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

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity founded in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi bought 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 commence manufacturing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches 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 pesticides, medicines, colorants, beauty products and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Studies demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government 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 this work are restricted in range, 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 manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. After it was set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant 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 cannot function and factories discharge contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to ban the manufacture, import and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I think that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and equipment have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

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

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