Utilising James Cropper’s CupCycling process, “Little Coffee Cup and the Big Surprise”, a children’s book by Hayley Slack, has been printed on paper made from recycled coffee cups.
In what is the debut book for the author, and a world-first according to James Cropper, the project has been created to spark conversations about waste, reuse, and the circular economy – one cup at a time. Ms Haley explained: “I wanted to create something meaningful that would make kids and parents think differently about what we throw away. 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 paper at James Cropper’s Burneside Mill in the Lake District.
“I wanted to show that we can create children’s books using UK waste, supporting both the environment and local industry,” Ms Hayley said. “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.”
According to environmental action NGO Wrap, an estimated 3.2 billion single-use cups are used annually in the UK. Programmes like CupCycling play a crucial role in turning waste into opportunity by efficiently gathering and upcycling used cups into valuable paper products, said James Cropper.
“Every child reading this story is literally holding a piece of that journey in their hands,” added Ms Slack. “That’s how we make sustainability feel real.”
