Glossary and abbreviations

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | V | W

R&D: Research and Development
REACH: The new European chemical substances regulation (REACH) was passed in December 2006. The acronym REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals. EC regulation No. 1907/2006 and Directive No. 2006/121/EC amending Directive 67/548/EEC were published in the Official Journal of December 30, 2006. REACH entered into force on June 1, 2007.
Recovery: Operation involving waste collection and/or sorting to recover the component goods and materials.
Recovery: Re-use, recycling or any other action aimed at obtaining reusable materials or energy from waste.
RECS: Renewable Energy Certificate System
Recycling: Direct return of a waste product into the production cycle from which it originated, to partially or totally replace a new raw material, for example, taking broken bottles (cullet), and melting them to make new bottles.
Recypulpe: An innovative system for treating pulping waste installed at paper mills that recycle waste paper. The pulper waste comes from waste paper slushing, a process used to recover the cellulose fibers to make new paper. This waste material is a heterogeneous mixture of fiber, plastic, wood, metal, glues, etc. The Recypulpe technology recovers the plastic and fiber from the waste.
Refuse collector: Trash man or sanitation engineer in charge of collecting household or other specific waste.
Relevant activities (global scope – EMS definition): - Production and distribution of drinking water, collection and treatment of municipal wastewater;
- Waste treatment activities (sorting, composting, incineration, landfilling, hazardous waste treatment);
- Energy services (heating and air conditioning networks, thermal and multi-technical services, industrial utilities and facilities management);
- Transportation of passengers and freight.
Renewable energy: These forms use natural sources (sun, wind, water or earth) to produce energy without damaging the environment. They include: solar and wind energy, hydropower, geothermal power, biomass, tidal energy, landfill biogas, etc.
Résoplast: The Résoplast unit produces fuel from industrial plastic waste. The process leads to fuel with characteristics (homogeneity, heating power, density and composition) comparable to those of conventional fossil fuels, especially in some high-energy consuming industrial sectors (cement works, lime plants, paper mills, etc). Résoplast provides an alternative to landfilling non-recyclable industrial plastic waste, thereby saving natural hydrocarbon resources.
Reuse: Operation by which a used item, designed and manufactured for a specific use, is used for the same or a different purpose. Reclamation and reconditioning are specific forms of reuse.
Reverse osmosis: A natural principle: if two aqueous solutions with a different saline concentration are separated by a membrane, the water spontaneously passes from the less concentrated to more concentrated saline solution.