Saccharomyces cerevisiae cannot utilize cellulose as a carbon source. In nature, cellulose is mainly degraded into glucose by 3 cellulases: endoglucanase II (EG), cellobiohydrolase II (CBH), and beta-glucosidase I (BC). A yeast codisplaying these 3 enzymes was constructed by cell surface engineering to directly ferment cellulose into ethanol. The constructed yeast was used to directly ferment newspaper-a carbon source. The newspaper was first pretreated with Trametes sp. Ha1 laccase, and the laccase-treated newspaper was used for investigating the fermentation by the constructed yeast. The results indicated that the laccase-pretreated waste paper could serve as a resource for the production of ethanol by direct fermentation mediated by yeast codisplaying EC, CBH, and BC. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.