After running the imported 100 per cent recycled stock at their Rural Press sites for a number of years, Fairfax Media has completed a successful trial of Oceanic Paper’s PT Aspex newsprint at The Age Print Centre in Tullamarine, Victoria. Appropriately, the first job to be printed on the Indonesian-made paper was the ‘The Age’ Green Guide TV supplement. Runs on one of the manroland Ageman (Geoman) presses went well into the night, continuing with the local edition of the ‘Australian Financial Review’ and suburban publications, with limited spoilage, quick ink take-up, and no web breaks. Fairfax Media Printing business and finance manager Jacob Muscat says Rural Press has successfully used the stock for more than 15 years: “I like to give other suppliers an opportunity to show their product on our presses, so why not invite Oceanic to trial the 100 per cent recycled PT Aspex paper,” he says. Oceanic Multitrading national paper sales manager Bruce Burgess says PT Aspex is the first imported newsprint to be used at the Tullamarine site since it was opened in 2003. “It’s a very strong newsprint which we have been selling on reputation for more than 15 years, plus it has the benefit of using fibre from paper collected from sites such as ‘The Age’, News Limited and West Australian Newspapers,” he says. “I suppose you can say we collect the wastepaper and turn it into newsprint and supply it back to the print sites.” Burgess says not only did the runs go well, but there were no problems interfacing mill data with Fairfax’s computerised reel recording system, with all files were processed without delay. gx On trial: Printers John Lawrence and Nicholas Cichowitz are pictured with Bruce Burgess