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The dense green jungle and rust-red elevations of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, lead to a small hill where a factory looms against the sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its equipment is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following one of the worst ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of environmental damage and other charges and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and methods – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been exposed through potable 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 looked at a list of medical conditions associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the blood are associated with higher chances of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after learning her children’s blood showed high levels of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was stunned.

“As mothers, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.”

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s management minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in jail. According to a ex-supervisor 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 ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan clearly outlined the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out samples to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, producing chemicals that will be utilized for pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, beauty products and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is increasing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, 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 fishing populations in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in the countryside, the plant fails to operate and factories discharge contaminated effluent straight into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have issued several warning letters to the site in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to prohibit the production, importation and use of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

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 associated with PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact communities that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”