Rehub on Murano:
A brand-new way to recycle and craft glass
Rehub on Murano: A brand-new way to recycle and craft glass
At the end of 2022, Italy saw the debut of a modular machine that can turn all types of glass waste into a soft glass paste. This versatile material, similar to terrazzo but moldable like clay, can be used to create artworks and products across many industries. Behind this innovation is the start-up rehub, based on Murano, the Venetian island famous as the birthplace of modern glassmaking in Europe and beyond.
The advantage of this new machine is that it can process all types of glass, including those that, due to their chemical composition, are usually excluded from conventional collection and recycling systems. During the design and prototyping phase, it grinds between 100 and 150 kilograms of glass objects per week, with dimensions of up to 20 × 30 centimetres. Once fully operational, it is expected to handle up to 500 kilograms per day. Occupying a footprint of just two square metres and standing 2.35 metres tall, it is easy to transport, operate, and adjust via a simple digital interface. In accordance with the Patent Cooperation Treaty, rehub has initiated the phased patent protection process for this invention in Italy. According to estimates by an international team of young experts, the production cost of the machine will be around 27,000 US dollars.
The specific glass paste produced by this machine has been named Revéro. From a technical perspective, it is an entirely new material whose granulation, density, and colour can be adjusted as needed. Its mechanical behaviour is similar to that of stone, while in terms of chemical and stain resistance, it is like glass. Unlike conventional glass mixtures that require high melting temperatures, Revéro melts and hardens at a low temperature, reducing energy consumption in production by 70%. It is suitable for shaping through a variety of both manual and machine techniques.
A blend of tradition, craftsmanship, technology, and design
The founder of rehub is Matteo Silverio, an architect and researcher from Venice, specialising in computational design and digital fabrication. During his studies and professional career in Italy and abroad, he collaborated with numerous renowned partners, including Carlo Ratti Associati, where he managed multi-million-euro projects for clients such as Capitaland, Emaar, Cisco, Poste Italiane, and Unicredit.
Half of Murano’s glass production is immediately discarded
On Murano, creating the famous glass products involves discarding about half of what is produced, as it is deemed not good enough for the luxury market. Due to its chemical composition (including metals such as copper, cobalt, manganese, iron, and gold), this glass is rarely recycled and most often ends up as waste. Sometimes, it is processed into lower-value materials, but more often, it is simply ground up and buried. The same fate awaits many other common types of glass, such as everyday glassware, window panes, light bulbs, windshields, etc.
There are indeed high value-added processes that have to be carried out by hand and that are the discriminating factor between craftsmanship and industry. But there are other low value-added activities that can be modified in order to reduce the environmental impact of energy-intensive processing, which produces a huge amount of waste and also represents a considerable expense for glassworks.
– Matteo Silverio, for RePlanet magazine, 2023
The island of Murano produces around 1,000 tons of glass waste each year, and a single rehub machine, operating 40 hours a week, could process even more than that. With 235 such machines, Italy could transform all of its glass waste into reusable glass paste.
Shaping the Revéro material
This clay-like material can be shaped using pressing and rolling techniques, and it can also be a filler for 3D printers and injection moulding machines. It is currently being used to create artworks, jewellery, wall tiles, tabletops, and similar items, while in the future, it is expected to be suitable for mass-produced goods as well.
In its current experimental phase, the prices of products made from Revéro material appear relatively high. For instance, a polished and finished panel of one square metre costs over a thousand euros. However, when the environmental and practical benefits of processing non-recyclable types of glass are taken into account, the price becomes far more reasonable. It is also worth noting that the production costs of both the rehub machine and this new material are expected to decrease as demand continues to grow.
For 3D printing with Revéro paste, rehub uses custom-built printers equipped with a patented extruder. It’s a Cartesian printer with a working volume of 50 × 50 × 70 cm, designed to handle up to 4 kg of glass at once. The extruder uses nozzles ranging from 1 to 10 mm in diameter, though even wider ones can be applied. With this technology, rehub explores complex geometries that cannot be achieved through traditional glassmaking techniques, most often producing decorative interior design objects.
All used, broken, or discarded Revéro products can be ground up and turned into new glass paste. rehub is constantly improving its quality and developing machines to shape it in ever more innovative ways.
We would like to export these two innovations, the transformation of glass into paste and the creation of machines suitable for shaping it, as widely as possible, in order to give young people an example of a more sustainable and technological way of doing business, and our children a better Planet than the one we inherited.
– Matteo Silverio, for RePlanet magazine, 2023
Partnerships and in-house collections
Showcasing the capabilities of its modular machine and the new material, rehub has already carried out a number of collaborations with European companies — from major brands like L’Oréal to smaller producers of lighting (Astep, Denmark), jewellery (Maison203), perfume (Ethos Profumerie), and fashion (Peserico).
Perfume bottles from L’Oréal and Ethos Profumerie are among the types of glass that cannot normally be recycled. With the rehub machine, these brands were able to create their own unique material, which was then used to craft jewellery pieces and a limited series of pendants. Another important collaboration was with Astep, the Danish lighting manufacturer, and Luca Nichetto, a designer originally from Murano who is now based in Sweden. Using the Revéro material, Nichetto designed two Astep lamps named Upglas, which were presented during the 2025 3daysofdesign event in Copenhagen.
Rehub is a frequent partner in various projects promoting sustainable materials and smart technologies. The company has also created several in-house collections — Res, Ghebi, Nasse, and Guava — with some of their pieces already acquired by the National Museum of 21st Century Arts (MAXXI) in Rome. These works have been recognised for their innovative use of recycled materials combined with exceptional craftsmanship. By commission from MAXXI, rehub also produced a table whose components can be rearranged to form six different surface configurations.
Still, the production of Revéro-based objects is not the company’s main priority, as rehub does not seek to compete with Murano’s master glassmakers. Its primary focus remains on pioneering glass recycling technology and developing machines that can shape the resulting glass paste.
Although it has not yet been officially patented or certified for industrial use, the rehub modular machine has already earned Matteo Silverio and his small team several important awards. At the 2022 National Innovation Award in L’Aquila, they returned with three honours — from the GEDI publishing group, the We Make Future festival, and the Polytechnic University of Milan. Previously, they had received several local awards in the Veneto region and won second place (out of 60) at the DesignXVenice competition, organised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and its innovation platform MITdesignX.
The machines we currently have are very good prototypes with a high degree of efficiency, but they need to become industrial machines that allow companies producing glass waste to be able to reprocess it.
– Matteo Silverio, for RePlanet magazine, 2023
A machine everyone should have
Even the name of this start-up reflects a circular process of capturing increasing amounts of glass waste and turning it into recyclable materials and products – until no waste remains. The prefix ‘Re’ sums up four key principles of the circular economy – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover – while ‘hub’ means a connection point, referring to the place where different processes intersect. Thus, the name rehub embodies the mission of giving new life to non-recyclable glass waste through creative technology and its impact on modern design.
This mission is especially relevant today, in a world that generates 130 million tons of non-recyclable glass waste each year. At the same time, sand is the second most exploited resource after water, and it is increasingly endangered. Its processing into glass consumes enormous amounts of energy, causing the European glass industry to emit around 22 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. This is why adopting rehub’s modular machine, which is expected to be capable of processing over 1,000 tonnes of all kinds of glass waste as early as 2027, would be wise, and why we should consider how products made from Revéro paste could become a new, more environmentally friendly standard.
References
- Boyle, T., Cardarelli, J., Joseph, L., & Winchell, W. (2023, December 12). Addressing Glass Waste in Venice. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, rehub, Venice Project Center, Screen DPT.
- European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency. (2022, March 16). How LIFE is reducing emissions from glass production. European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (News).
- Rehub. (online). https://rehub.glass/
- rePlanet. (2023, October 18). The rehabilitation of glass waste. rePlanet magazine (New Tehnologies).
- Elisa L. (2025, January 29). La startup rehub salva il vetro di Murano grazie alla stampa 3D. 3Dnatives, il sito web della stampa 3D.