Invented between 1650 and 1680 in the Netherlands, this new pulping technique, which used sharp metal blades, only gained widespread recognition throughout Europe in the second half of the 18th century. Developed in a particular northern context, the Dutch pulper was used in a different type of mill, powered by wind. In fact, on a European level, paper mills traditionally consisted of water mills, in which the energy needed for production was generated through the action of the force of the currents on the mechanical rotation of a wheel, which powered the production machinery.

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In some countries, such as Holland, the former Netherlands, limited water resources led local craftsmen, around 1600, to adapt the technical innovation of windmills to paper production. An ancestor of the wind turbine, this 13th-century invention, initially used to drain flooded lands, spread considerably across the Dutch landscape in 1750, reaching 9,000 mills by 1850.

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In Dutch paper mills, the ‘Hollander’ was initially mechanically operated. With the advent of electricity, the innovation was equipped with a stack, becoming the refining stack later known as the famous Dutch stack or Dutch pulper.