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

The factory is almost brand new, but its equipment is not: it comes from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations 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 inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, the entire operational setup, its patents and processes – all required components to produce Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Previously recognized for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations 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 employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of Pfas documented in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a catalog of health issues related to PFAS, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

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

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings indicate 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 one of the three men on the board 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 recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Growth Plans

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. Logistics data show 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, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations demonstrate that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. But although international attention is increasing, in India the issue 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 as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, head 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 fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in the countryside, the facility fails to operate and industries release contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Environmental authorities have issued several warning letters to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to ban the manufacture, importation and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the influence that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact communities that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”