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The dense tropical forest and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it comes from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water sources in an region inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of environmental damage and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

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

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and methods – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, wedged between local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. 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, showed among the top levels of PFAS ever recorded in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a catalog of health issues related to PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to higher chances of malignancies, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Because our children are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to investors. Records of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s executives downplayed environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive 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 prison. According to a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets 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 product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Logistics data show that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations demonstrate that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But even though international attention is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in various regions. 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 poor ecological history”. After it was set up 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 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 industries release polluted water directly into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have issued multiple notices to the plant in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to ban the manufacture, import and utilization of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these global corporations have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.

“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”