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The dense green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a small hill where a industrial facility stands under the open sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is not: it originates from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following among the most severe ecological controversies 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, its former executives were found guilty at the local tribunal of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

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

Nevertheless, the entire operational setup, its patents and methods – all required components to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, wedged between villages and groves of trees. And the factory has just started to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Once known for its specialism in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated concentrations of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Hundreds of thousands 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, showed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas ever recorded in blood samples. “After the facts emerged, I looked at a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the bloodstream are associated with higher chances of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and machinery were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“As mothers, as females, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the open sale. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to shareholders. Records of shareholders’ meetings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the board of Laxmi Organic Italy, a entity established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of environmental pollution and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. Per a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was traveling for work to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the construction of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already intending to commence manufacturing fluorinated compounds 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 objective 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 secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, medicines, dyes, beauty products and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Studies have shown that concentrations of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, especially near manufacturing facilities. But although international attention is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have performed research in various regions. But these studies are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, 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 region totally deteriorated,” she said.

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

“Nearby communities have always stated that it’s malfunctioning,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and industries release polluted water directly into the waterways.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the plant in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to prohibit the production, importation and utilization of more than 10,000 forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be pushing the industry to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been relocated to a country like India should lead us to reflect, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with PFAS manufacturing 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. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s always a risk.”