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The lush green jungle and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms against the sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down 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 brought to trial for polluting water resources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution 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 intellectual property and methods – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated levels of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants 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, showed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas ever recorded in human blood. “When the story came to light, I looked at a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to increased risk of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

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

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a company founded in 2021. Also included 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 prior to the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi bought 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 intending to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples 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 fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, dyes, beauty products and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations demonstrate that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although international attention is increasing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. 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 performed research 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 manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge polluted water straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to ban the production, import and utilization of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This attention may be pushing the industry to the developing nations, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to move in countries where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for years to come.

“That region has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”