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The dense green jungle and reddish-brown hills of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, lead to a modest rise where a factory looms against the sky.

The factory is almost brand new, but its machinery is far from new: it originates from the defunct Miteni factory 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 firm’s leadership was brought to trial for polluting water resources in an area home to 350,000 people. In June, previous company leaders were convicted 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?

And yet, the entire operational setup, its patents and methods – everything needed to manufacture forever chemicals – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and groves of trees. And the factory has just started to produce forever chemicals again.

An Environmental Burden

Previously recognized for its expertise in creating methods for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now notorious for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated levels of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous of inhabitants had been exposed through potable water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its specialty chemicals division, showed among the top levels of Pfas documented in blood samples. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and discovered I had them all,” says Ermetti.

High levels of Pfas in the bloodstream are linked to increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, fertility issues and more. Ermetti is presently recuperating from a recent medical procedure.

Community Concerns

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and activist with Mothers Against PFAS, started organizing after learning her children’s blood showed high levels of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as females, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are the children of all.”

Corporate Transition

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by Viva Lifesciences, a branch of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the only bidder in the public auction. By the start of 2023, all the equipment was being shipped 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 chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “doing everything legally in compliance with EU regulations”.

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 former mid-level manager speaking on condition of anonymity, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi bought Miteni’s properties in June 2019, the ecological review for the construction of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the company was already planning to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s product list. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Strategic Expansion

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “acquire the customer base of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to get approval on the quality of the compounds, 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, manufacturing substances that will be used in pesticides, pharmaceuticals, colorants, beauty products and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations demonstrate that concentrations of forever chemicals in the environment are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But although international attention is increasing, 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 ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have conducted studies in various regions. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still only a handful.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram manufacturing zone “has a dismal environmental track record”. After it was set up in 1986, “the income source of fishing populations in this area completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is served by a shared effluent treatment facility that has been frequently criticized.

“Nearby communities 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 industries discharge contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Environmental authorities have sent several warning letters to the site in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the European Chemical Agency is reviewing a plan to prohibit the manufacture, importation and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This scrutiny may be driving the sector to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the academic institution. “I believe that this issue should be investigated, because the fact that Miteni’s production, patents and equipment have been relocated to a nation like India should prompt consideration, minimally, on the influence that these multinationals have to move in nations where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy lives on – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The health impacts linked to PFAS manufacturing are expected to impact communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for years to come.

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