The startup that recycles Murano glass wins the Green&Blue award
[ad_1]
A Dragon Boat race in China. Love for the Planet. The desire to leave a better world to a child. Thus was born a startup that changes the paradigm of glass recycling and that won the Green & Blue Award in the context of the National Innovation Award, the PNI, a unique path that the OECD in 2019 recognized as a best practice for networking local networks, public bodies, investors, companies and universities. The setup started from Murano. Every year, 1000 tons of glass waste are produced here. Which end up in the landfill. The volume, to be clear, is equivalent to the bell tower of San Marco in Venice. Faced with this problem and the false perception that glass is 100% recyclable (“only the packaging is recyclable, the rest is special waste”), there is a designer and his wife. Brains returning after years abroad, great passion for the circular economy and new technologies. They return to Murano and ask themselves: How can we use this waste and do something for our planet?
So Matteo Silverio, 36, and Marta Donà found the startup Rehub. A laboratory that gives a second chance to glass waste that is not recycled today, thanks to technology. “We have devised a process for transforming glass into a kind of clay that can be modelled. We can do it by hand, but also with our 3D printers or using injection techniques, and at room temperature. To do this, we mix the glass with natural binders (we have tested more than 50) which make it workable like plasticine. Thus we can create any design object and accessories for the fashion world. It is luxury handcrafted glass”. He has a degree in architecture, she has a degree in communications science, who for years worked in the family business that restores and produces chandeliers with Murano glass. They met in China, at the World University Dragon Boat Championships. They are part of the same crew, they represent the University of Venice. I’m in the same canoe. And they win the world title in the 500 meters. They fall in love, get married, have a child. “Just the idea of leaving him a better planet than the one our parents gave us prompted us to move. None of us would throw garbage in our own home. No one would burn a wardrobe in the home just because we no longer like it Why then should we do it in the home of the world, our Planet?”.
The project
In universities looking for startups fighting against climate change
by Archangel Rociola
A native ecologist, project manager, Matteo also works with Carlo Ratti, comes into contact with researchers at MIT in Boston. He learns a new approach to things, is passionate about new technologies, does many projects with 3D printing. Researcher at the University of Venice, professor at the Master in Digital Architecture, he returns to Murano and finds himself in an enchanted world, where however time has stopped. “Murano has a serious generational problem. In 15 years there will be no more master glassmakers. And founding a startup here is a bit like giving young people an example of a more sustainable and technological way of doing business. Our intention is also that of democratizing a material that for centuries has been exclusive to glass masters, considered as noble and with the privilege of bourgeois men to be able to marry noblewomen”. And Murano thanks almost unconsciously. “The island has grasped our innovation and gives us the strength to believe in it even more. The glassmakers give us glass waste, sorted by colour. Glass printing is nothing new. But it is a hot and very energy-intensive. We have developed a cold glass manipulation process (patent pending)”.
The two, who started nine months ago in bootstrapping, i.e. with the resources they had, are now already five, looking for investors and business angels. Objective: to climb. They came second at the Veneto StartCup, second among 60 startups at MIT DesignX, the acceleration program of MIT in Boston. “It means that there is still room for improvement. And I take comfort in thinking that the Maneskin also finished second in XFactor”.
The initiative
In L’Aquila the final of the award for climate startups
by Luca Fraioli
Rehub is now able to process 50 kg of waste per month. From these he obtains 50 kg of products. Zero waste. The goal: to process 200 kg. “We created a company to create a profit, but doing something useful for the planet. I could have chosen a permanent job, clock-in every morning, get 13th, 14th. I said: no. Now I’m banging more, but I’m happy.” Then he tells you that he is not an extremist. “I’m not like Greta Thunberg, I take the plane and consume. But I think it’s right to do one’s part. There was a problem in front of me. No one saw it. We started from a local issue, but we ignored that the issue of waste non-recyclable glass was so big. The data shocked me. We all have the false perception that glass is hyper-sustainable and 100% recyclable. But this is only true on paper… It is estimated that in Europe only the construction sector generates about 5 million tons of glass waste a year. Most of this ends up in landfills or is transformed into semi-finished products for the building industry, in a down-cycling process that does not do justice to this material”.
Meanwhile, the group is working on the design of a machine capable of processing 1 ton of glass per day. An easy-to-use, easy-to-carry machine. “It’s everyone’s problem, the car could be licensed where the product is created.” Rehub is a play on words that also winks at the international market. “He wants to recall the English term “rehab”, which identifies the rehabilitation process in a clinic for people with addiction problems who are offered a second chance. In our case, the prefix “Re” is a reference to the 4Rs of the circular economy (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover), while with the term “hub” we mean a junction of arrivals and departures. A place where waste enters as waste and leaves with a new life”.
[ad_2]
Source link
