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

The factory is almost brand new, but its equipment is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after one of the worst ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water sources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were convicted at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and given prison sentences, 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 methods – all required components to manufacture Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the factory has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. 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 among the top levels of PFAS documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I looked at a list of medical conditions associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the bloodstream are associated with increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being sent to India, she was stunned.

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

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management minimized environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men 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 ecological offenses and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a ex-supervisor speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

Although 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 company was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to secure validation on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, colorants, beauty products and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations demonstrate that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. 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 not present in those standards. It’s not recognised by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, head 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 income source of fishing populations in this area totally deteriorated,” she said.

The industrial area is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and factories release contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a proposal to prohibit the manufacture, import and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this issue should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and machinery have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in countries where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are facing an hazardous setting for generations.

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