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The dense tropical forest and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a small hill where a factory looms 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 after one of the worst environmental scandals in the nation’s modern record: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the firm’s leadership was prosecuted for contaminating water sources in an region inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and sentenced to jail, which they are expected to appeal against.

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

And yet, the entire operational setup, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between villages and wooded areas. And the factory has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the toxic legacy it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found extraordinarily high concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of inhabitants had been exposed through drinking water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS ever recorded in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and discovered I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are linked to higher chances of cancer, heart conditions, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her children’s blood showed high levels 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 women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the open sale. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.

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

While Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the plant in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the company 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 become a leader in the production of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Shipping records show that, to secure validation on the standard 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 fully operational, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, colorants, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations have shown that levels of persistent pollutants in the environment are alarmingly high, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though international attention is growing, in India the issue is not on the political agenda yet.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s unacknowledged by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the academic institution. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in various regions. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a poor ecological history”. After it was established in 1986, “the livelihood of fishing populations in this region totally deteriorated,” she said.

The industrial area is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a frequent event in the countryside, the plant fails to operate and factories release contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a plan to ban the production, import and use of more than 10,000 persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I think that this issue should be examined, because the reality that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are likely to affect communities that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough ecological damage by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”