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The dense 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 largely newly built, 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 environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water sources in an region 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, with appeals anticipated.

What are PFAS, how toxic are they and how do you become exposed?

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and methods – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of residents had been subjected through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed among the top levels of PFAS ever recorded in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I looked at a list of medical conditions associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the blood are associated with increased risk of malignancies, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being transferred to India, she was stunned.

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

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s management downplayed ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established 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 former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorochemicals 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 goal to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that concentrations of forever chemicals in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But although global focus is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in such guidelines. It’s not recognised 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 various regions. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”

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 established in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a shared effluent treatment facility 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 rural Maharashtra state, the plant fails to operate and industries discharge polluted water directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the plant in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the production, importation and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be pushing the sector to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and equipment 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 clearly a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to Pfas production are expected to impact communities that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.

“That region has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies move in, it’s always a risk.”