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The lush green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its machinery is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an region home to 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution 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, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now here in 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 expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high concentrations of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been exposed through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades 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,” says Ermetti.

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

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after learning her children’s blood indicated high levels of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

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

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the recent court case 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 plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective 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 compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be used in pesticides, pharmaceuticals, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Studies demonstrate that concentrations of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around production sites. But although international attention is increasing, 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 Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, 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 set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fishing populations in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“Nearby communities have always stated 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 directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to ban the production, importation and utilization of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the industry to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to relocate in countries where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect populations that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for years to come.

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