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The lush green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, lead to a modest rise where a factory looms against the sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its equipment is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 following among the most severe environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after decades of producing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water resources in an region home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were found guilty at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

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

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – everything needed to produce Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a vast industrial enclave thousands of miles distant, wedged between villages and groves of trees. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its specialism in developing processes for specialty compounds, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated levels of Pfas in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous of residents 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 ever recorded in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a catalog of health issues associated with PFAS, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

High levels of PFAS in the blood are associated with increased risk of cancer, heart conditions, liver and kidney damage, fertility issues and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and activist with Mamme No Pfas, began mobilizing after discovering her offspring’s blood tests indicated high levels of forever chemicals. When she learned that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was stunned.

“Being parents, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are everyone’s children.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its holdings were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was travelling on freight ships heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its recent purchase to investors. Transcripts of shareholders’ meetings show that Laxmi’s management minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the June trial and given six years and four months in prison. Per a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips 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 factory in Lote shows that in March 2018 the company was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy clearly outlined the goal to “acquire the customer base 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 samples to companies with previous commercial ties with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, manufacturing substances that will be used in agrochemicals, medicines, colorants, beauty products and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations demonstrate 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 on the political agenda yet.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is not present in such guidelines. It’s not recognised by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in various regions. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”

Local Impact

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 fisher folk communities 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. “During power outages, a frequent event in rural Maharashtra state, the facility fails to operate and factories discharge contaminated effluent directly into the waterways.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the plant in recent years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is examining a plan to ban the manufacture, importation and utilization of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This attention may be pushing the industry to the global south, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the University of Padua. “I believe that this matter should be examined, because the fact that Miteni’s operations, intellectual assets and equipment have been transferred to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the influence that these global corporations have to relocate in countries where there is evidently a race to the bottom in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects linked to Pfas production are likely to affect communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations.

“That region has seen enough environmental destruction by now,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms move in, it’s perpetually concerning.”