Children's book made from recycled coffee cups brings sustainability to storytime

A charming new children's book is turning pages – and heads – in the publishing world. Little Coffee Cup and the Big Surprise, the debut title from author and sustainability advocate Hayley Slack, is the world's first published children's book to be printed on paper made from recycled coffee cups.

Blending imagination with innovation, this heartwarming tale introduces young readers to Little Coffee Cup, a spirited character who leaves the comfort of a café to discover the big, wide world. But beneath the playful storyline lies a bigger purpose: to spark conversations about waste, reuse and the circular economy, one cup at a time.

‘As a mum of two and someone who works in the waste industry, I wanted to create something meaningful that would make kids and parents think differently about what we throw away,’ explained Hayley, who works at Biffa and has long championed sustainable practices. ‘Books have the power to shape how children see the world, so why not use them to also show how the world can be?’

Each physical book is made from 13 recycled coffee cups, collected from across the UK. Through CupCycling, those cups are given a second life by being transformed into beautiful, high quality paper. In a poetic twist, the book ends at the very mill where the real cup to book transformation takes place.

‘I wanted to show that we can create children's books using UK waste, supporting both the environment and local industry,’ Hayley explained. ‘If we can demonstrate how recycled coffee cup waste can become new books we can promote greater rates of recycling, less imports and reduce the number of trees being used solely for new books. Why can't we give our billions of used coffee cups in the UK the chance to be turned into children's books?’

The book's release is particularly timely, following the UK government's recent decision to scrap a proposed mandatory takeback scheme for disposable cups, citing limited environmental benefit and high cost to industry.

According to environmental action NGO WRAP, an estimated 3.2 billion single use cups are used annually in the UK, a stark reminder of the scale of the challenge. Importantly, sufficient processing capacity already exists to recycle this volume of cups, highlighting that the key barrier lies in collection and participation. In this context, programmes like CupCycling play a crucial role in turning waste into opportunity by efficiently gathering and upcycling used cups into valuable paper products.

With growing concerns around sustainability in publishing, from overseas printing to resource heavy production, Little Coffee Cup and the Big Surprise offers a fresh model for sustainable storytelling. It is a small book with a big message: that waste can be reimagined into something magical.

Little Coffee Cup and the Big Surprise is launching soon.