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The dense green jungle and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its equipment is far from new: it comes from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for polluting water resources in an area home to 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of environmental damage and other charges and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

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

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between villages and wooded areas. And the factory has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high levels of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been exposed through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS ever recorded in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the blood are associated with increased risk of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s management minimized ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and false accounting at the recent court case and sentenced to 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.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan clearly outlined the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing 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 completely active, manufacturing substances that will be used in agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around production sites. But although international attention is growing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a poor ecological history”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and factories release polluted water straight into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to prohibit the manufacture, import and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be pushing the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and equipment have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the power that these global corporations have to move in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact communities that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

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