Metal recycler Simmsmetal has cleared redundant press and mailroom equipment from Fairfax Media's former Chullora print site.

Bob Lockley, the publisher's print and logistics chief executive, confirmed today that manroland Colorman presses and most of the buffered Müller Martini mailroom equipment from the suburban Sydney site has been cleared. "I am sad to report that almost all of the plant has gone for scrap," he told GXpress.

The cleared property is now being offered for sale.

Production of the Sydney Morning Herald and editions of the Australian Financial Review has been switched to regional sites including Fairfax North Richmond, named last year as PANPA's inaugural print centre of the year.

Some of the mailroom equipment was moved to Fairfax's Ballarat print site, where a similar operation has seen production of The Age and the Victorian editions of the Australian Financial Review switched from Tullamarine. The landmark concrete-and-steel factory alongside the Melbourne airport freeway has already been cleared and sold for use as a data centre.

There, about half the Geoman press units and folders, and all of the Ferag mailroom equipment have been used for Fairfax upgrade projects in North Richmond and Wellington, New Zealand.

Fairfax spent $42 million on upgrading the Australian regional plants, and expects to get most of that back within a year, not counting the proceeds of the real estate sales.

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