In 1801 Pomeranian-English papermaker Matthias Koops published in London Historical Account of the Substances which Have Been Used to Describe Events, and to Convey Ideas from the Earliest Date to the Invention of Paper. Second edition. Printed on Paper Re-Made from Old Printed and Written Paper.
In 1800 Koops, whose scholarly and inventive attributes seem to have excelled his business acumen, published the first edition of this serious account of the history of materials used for recording information. To promote his venture to produce paper from materials other than linen rags— The Straw Paper Manufactory— Koops had the first edition printed entirely on yellow paper made from straw. The following year he had part of the second edition, essentially identical to the first, printed on straw, but he also had a portion of the second edition printed on recycled paper, with the exception of the frontispiece image of the papyrus plant, which was printed on straw in both versions of the second edition. The copies printed on recycled paper were the first books ever printed on recycled paper, and may have remained the only books printed on recycled paper for a century or more; I have been unable to find any study of this topic.
The appendix of all copies of Koops's second edition (pp. 259-73) was printed on paper made from wood pulp. This may be the earliest extensive printing on paper made from wood pulp. Printing on paper made from wood fibers may have been first shown in Jacob Christian Schaäffer's Versuche und Muster ohne all Lumpen oder doch mit eniem geringen Zusatze derselben Papier zu machen (1765-71), and it is probable that Koops got the idea for producing this paper from Schäffer's work.
My copy of the 1801 edition shows that Koops's recycled paper was of excellent quality; his wood pulp paper somewhat less so, since that final gathering of my copy has browned but remains sound.
From the name of Koops's enterprise it is evident that he considered the production of paper from materials other than linen rags to be more commercial than the paper recycling process he invented:
". . . By 1800 Koops had experience of manufacturing from waste paper at Neckinger mill in Bermondsey, and in 1800–01 three patents were granted to him: one for extracting inks from printed and written paper before pulping, and the other two for making paper fit for printing from straw, hay, thistles, waste, and refuse of hemp and flax. In 1800 his Historical Account of the Substances which have been Used to Describe Events was printed on straw paper.
"Having proved the possibility of making good paper from such materials, Koops set up a company, the Straw Paper Manufactory, raised over £70,000 by issue of shares, and in 1801 erected a paper-making mill at Millbank in Westminster. Contractors for the machinery included John Rennie, the engineer, and the firm of Boulton and Watt. This paper mill was easily the largest in the country. The enterprise, however, was over-ambitious and under-capitalized. Koops himself was the principal shareholder in the venture and on the strength of this offered to satisfy his creditors. His failure to discharge his bankruptcy by 1802 compelled Koops's creditors to issue a writ, inter alia, for seizure of the Straw Paper Manufactory's assets, and in the end its proprietors could not keep the enterprise solvent. The Millbank paper mill and its equipment were eventually offered for sale by auction in October 1804, thereby ending the possibility of England challenging the European paper industry by using more easily available materials for making paper" (Oxford DNB).
