You can easily clean the sand by using an Sifter. You simply spot clean and the stuff you can see on top and then sift the rest of the sand. Also i don't know where you buy your sand from but i can get red desert sand 20KG bags for $25 so you are being WAY overcharged. Even commercial places like petstock sell 20KG bags for only $35.
Sand is acutally quite easy to clean aswell. Put it into a bucket, fill with water, let soak for awhile, place it on a piece of plastic in the backyard to dry and then put back into the enclosure. Or if you can afford it just replace it. A 20KG bag goes a LONG way in the average sized enclosure.
Newspaper is cheap and very easy to clean, this i do not disagree with. However, seeing as though i don't have 20-30 pythons i breed, i'd prefer to keep my pythons 100% stimulated and copnditioned by giving them a substrate they natural live in. They can push it around, Use it to help shedding by rubbing against it and it also also them to move around easier, whereas, newpaper is slippery so it help keep them in condition as well.
In the end it's personal choice. For me with a small collection, i'd much prefer to keep it au naturale'............