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The dense green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, lead to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is far from new: it comes from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: 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 found guilty at the local tribunal of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it left behind. 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 worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS documented 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 bloodstream are linked to higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. 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 discovering her offspring’s blood tests indicated high levels of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents 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 bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, 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 travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to shareholders. Transcripts of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in jail. Per a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, including 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 used in pesticides, pharmaceuticals, colorants, beauty products and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, especially near production sites. But although international attention is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in various regions. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this region totally deteriorated,” she said.

The industrial area is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and industries release contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to prohibit the manufacture, importation and utilization 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 academic institution. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the influence that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are expected to impact populations that are facing an unsafe environment for years to come.

“The area has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s always a risk.”