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The dense green jungle and rust-red elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its equipment is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the local tribunal of environmental damage and other charges and sentenced to jail, with appeals anticipated.

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

And yet, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and methods – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave almost 4,000 miles away, sandwiched among villages and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to produce forever chemicals again.

A Toxic Legacy

Previously recognized for its specialism in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. 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 employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, displayed among the top levels of PFAS documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the blood are associated with higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood showed elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. 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 the children of all.”

Corporate Transition

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s management minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company founded in 2021. Also included is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was convicted of environmental pollution and financial misreporting at the June trial and given six years and four months in jail. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before 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 shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to start producing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the manufacturing of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to get approval on the standard of the chemicals, 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, pharmaceuticals, colorants, beauty products and other products.

Environmental Oversight

Studies demonstrate that concentrations of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though global focus is increasing, in India the matter is not on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the Indian government currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist 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.”

Regional Consequences

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 income source of fishing populations in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The industrial area is served by a centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a frequent event in the countryside, the plant cannot function and industries release contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have issued multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a proposal to prohibit the manufacture, import and use of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be pushing the sector to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I believe that this issue should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and machinery have been transferred 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 lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are facing an unsafe environment for years to come.

“The area has seen enough ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s always a risk.”