Dr Silvia Tedesco, from the Centre for Sustainable Innovation at the University of Salford, recently presented innovative research at the 2025 SEEP (Sustainable Energy and Environmental Protection) Conference.
Her talk, ‘Accelerating Sustainability of the Paper Sector via Industrial Symbiosis,’ explored how waste from the paper industry can be turned into a useful resource to support more sustainable manufacturing.
Finding value in paper waste
In 2023, the UK generated more than 5.4 million tonnes of paper and cardboard waste. Around 10% of this ends up as paper sludge, a wet, fibrous by-product that’s difficult to recycle or reuse. It often gets burnt for energy recovery or sent to landfill, in both cases generating carbon emissions.
One possible solution is anaerobic digestion, a biological process that breaks down waste in the absence of oxygen to produce methane, which can be used as a renewable energy source. However, because paper sludge contains a lot of cellulose, which is hard to break down, this process hasn’t been very efficient so far.
A new approach to bioenergy
The study, funded by BBSRC’s Biomass Biorefinery Network (BBNet), explored two ways to improve methane production from paper sludge:
- Mild heat pre-treatment, where the sludge is heated before digestion to help break down the fibres.
- Microbial acclimation, which involves gradually training a community of microorganisms to digest paper sludge more effectively over time
The results showed that while heating improved methane production by 15 to 22%, the most effective method was microbial acclimation. This technique produced up to 27 litres of methane per kg of wet paper sludge (with about 5 kWh per cubic metre of gas produced) without the need for additional energy input. This makes it a more sustainable and cost-effective enhancement technique.
Reflections from SEEP 2025
Reflecting on the SEEP conference, Silvia highlighted the BP Symposium at the SEEP conference as a particularly powerful session: “What stood out the most to me was their recognition that decarbonisation is everyone’s business. Strong principles must be matched by strong partnerships if we are to achieve net zero.”
The conference also highlighted a growing industry presence in academic research, with many of the presented projects – including Silvia’s – featuring collaboration with commercial partners. This marks a promising shift toward a more integrated and impactful approach to sustainability challenges.
What’s next?
The SEEP conference provided a vital platform for interdisciplinary exchange, bringing together academics, industry leaders, and policymakers committed to building a more sustainable future. Dr Tedesco’s work is a testament to the transformative potential of combining biological innovation with systems thinking, driving circular economy principles in sectors often overlooked. This work is currently being expanded with a deeper investigation into the micro-organisms consortium that has made the methane improvement possible, and the results are anticipated to be submitted for publication in Elsevier later this year in one of the journals associated with the SEEP conference.