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The dense green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s west coast, lead to a small hill where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following among the most severe ecological controversies in the nation’s modern record: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was brought to trial for contaminating water resources in an area home to 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the local tribunal of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

And yet, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and processes – all required components to produce Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between villages and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous 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 documented in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a catalog of health issues associated with Pfas, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Public Apprehensions

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

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

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By early 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings show that Laxmi’s management minimized environmental concerns, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully in compliance with EU regulations”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was convicted of ecological offenses and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to secure validation on the quality of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing test batches to firms with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be used in pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although global focus is growing, in India the matter is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s unacknowledged 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 these studies are restricted in range, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was set up in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

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

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the plant cannot function and factories release contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to prohibit the production, import and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be pushing the industry to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been transferred 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.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect 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 move in, it’s always a risk.”