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The dense tropical forest and rust-red hills of Lote, located on India’s west coast, give way to a small hill where a factory looms under the open sky.

This industrial unit is almost brand new, but its equipment is far from new: it originates from the former Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following 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 polluting water sources in an region inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution 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?

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

A Toxic Legacy

Previously recognized for its expertise in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the toxic legacy it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated levels of PFAS compounds in the facility’s effluent. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had been subjected through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, 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.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the bloodstream are linked to higher chances of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney damage, reproductive disorders and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mothers Against PFAS, began mobilizing after discovering her children’s blood showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she learned that Miteni’s proprietary information and machinery were being sent to India, she was stunned.

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

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its assets were acquired in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By early 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was promoting its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management downplayed ecological worries, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity 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 former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the company went bankrupt.

Although 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 firm was already planning to commence manufacturing fluorochemicals matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries did not respond to requests for comment.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the manufacturing of Pfas and specialty chemicals. Shipping records indicate that, to secure validation on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi began distributing samples 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, manufacturing substances that will be used in pesticides, medicines, colorants, cosmetics and other products.

Regulatory Context

Studies demonstrate that concentrations of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, especially near manufacturing facilities. But although international attention 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 currently,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an environmental chemist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in different states. But this work are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a poor ecological history”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“The local villages have always stated that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge polluted water straight into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is examining a plan to ban the production, importation and utilization of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This scrutiny may be driving 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 fact that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and equipment have been transferred to a country like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the influence that these multinationals have to relocate in countries where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to Pfas production are expected to impact communities that are facing an hazardous setting for years to come.

“That region has experienced sufficient environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “If more dangerous companies establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”