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The lush tropical forest and reddish-brown hills of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms against the sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its equipment is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water sources in an area inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty 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?

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and methods – all required components to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between villages and wooded areas. And the factory has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been subjected through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed among the top levels of PFAS documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I looked at a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are associated with increased risk of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests indicated elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“As mothers, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.”

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 only bidder in the public auction. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, 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 founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before 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 compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records show that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, such as 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 agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and other products.

Regulatory Context

Investigations demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But even though international attention is growing, in India the matter is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in various regions. But these studies 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 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 served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and industries release contaminated effluent directly into the streams.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the site in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a proposal to ban the production, import and use of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the sector to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is clearly 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 polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

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