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The lush tropical forest and rust-red elevations of Lote, located on India’s west coast, lead to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its equipment is far from new: it originates from the former Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the firm’s leadership was brought to trial for polluting water sources in an area home to 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the local tribunal of environmental damage and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, 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 – all required components to produce Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has recently begun to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its expertise in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found extraordinarily high levels of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been exposed through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its fluorinated chemical department, showed among the top levels of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the bloodstream are associated with higher chances of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was shocked.

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

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed 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 directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. According to a former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi purchased 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 compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan clearly outlined the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Logistics data show that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing 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 agrochemicals, medicines, dyes, beauty products and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations demonstrate that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, especially near production sites. But although international attention is growing, 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 as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in various regions. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was established in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the plant cannot function and factories release polluted water directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in recent years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to ban the production, import and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be pushing the sector to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe 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, minimally, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in countries where there is evidently a lowering of standards in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts associated with Pfas production are expected to impact populations that are already struggling with an hazardous setting for years to come.

“That region has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”