Annex
SOME RELEVANT
DEFINITIONS
Regeneration
The WOD 75/439 (87/101) clearly has as its primary
objective regeneration by which is meant
any process whereby baseoils can be produced
by refining waste oils, in particular by removing the contaminants,
oxidation products and additives contained in such oils
it further defined processing as
operations designed to permit the re-use of
waste oils, that is to say, regeneration and combustion
and disposal as
the processing or destruction of waste oils
as well as their storage and tipping above or under ground
and finally, combustion as
the use of waste oils as fuel with the heat
produced being adequately recovered
Waste oil
Directive 75/439
any semi-liquid or liquid used product totally
or partially consisting of mineral or synthetic oil, including
the oily residues from tanks, oil-water mixtures and emulsions
Directive 87/101
any mineral based lubrication or industrial
oils which have become unfit for the use for which they were originally
intended and in particular used combustion engine oils and gearbox
oils and also mineral lubricating oils, oils for turbines and
hydraulic oils
The above definitions are dated, fail to recognise
the complexity of lubricant products and were not written with
any expert or practical understanding of lubricants markets. It
may be assumed also that, from the changed wording of the second
directive, synthetic oil is specifically excluded from the definition
of waste oil notwithstanding the subsequent significant and continuing
growth in use of such materials, particularly in the automotive
sector. At the time of writing, however, this provides the core
definition for the management of waste oil in Europe.
Also worth noting is the fact that any other
waste oil of non-lubricant origin is not addressed by the Directive;
thus mineral oils such as Fuel Oils (Light, Medium and Heavy),
gasoil, kerosine and gasoline all of which arise as waste from
time to time may be managed without reference to the Waste Oil
Directive.
Finally it is interesting to note that HM C&E
is moving away from its longstanding use of the word "hydrocarbon"
to the phrase "mineral oil" to define the class of material
produced by the petroleum industry for use generally as a source
of energy or fuel. This is unlikely to remove the confusion resulting
from the many and varied uses and abuses of the word "oil",
waste or otherwise.
EU Commission-recycling
The reprocessing in a production process of
the waste materials for the original purpose or for other purposes,
including organic recycling but excluding energy recovery. The
recycling industry is referred to as firms involved in collection,
separation, dismantling, sorting and processing of recyclable
materials, as well as waste generators and users, which complies
with the above definition of recycling.
Whilst the exclusion of energy recovery may
be a valid restriction when promoting recycling for a wide range
of substances it poses a particular problem in the case of hydrocarbons
whose primary use is actually the production of energy. Thus reprocessing
waste oil to make it fit for energy production should be seen
as return to original purpose and thus recycling.
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