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The lush tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, lead to a small hill where a industrial facility stands against the sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its equipment is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an region inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were found guilty at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – all required components to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the factory has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of residents had been subjected through potable water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, showed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS documented in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to increased risk of cancer, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and more. 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 offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By early 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the recent court case and given six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India months before the company went bankrupt.

Although Laxmi purchased 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 planning to start producing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy 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. Logistics data 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, 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 used in pesticides, medicines, dyes, beauty products and other products.

Regulatory Context

Studies have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in different states. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. After it was set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

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

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and industries release contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

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 sector to the global south, 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, intellectual assets and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the influence that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect populations that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.

“That region has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”