Some forms of ribosomal pause are reversible without needing to discard the translated peptide and mRNA. This sort, usually described as a slowdown, is usually caused by polyproline stretches (resolved by EFP or eIF5A) and uncharged tRNA. Slowdowns are important for the cell to control how much protein is produced; it also aids co-translational folding of the nascent polypeptide on the ribosome, and delays protein translation while its encoding mRNA; this can trigger ribosomal frameshifting.
More severe "stalls" can be caused an actual lack of tRNA or by the mRNA terminating without a stop codon. In this case, ribosomal quality control (RQC) performs crisis rescue by translational abandonment. This releases the ribosome from the mRNA. The incomplete polypeptide is targeted for destruction; in eukaryotes, mRNA no-go decay is also triggered.
It is difficult for RQC machinery to differentiate between a slowdown and a stall. It is possible for a mRNA sequence that normally produces a protein slowly to produce nothing instead due to intervention by RQC under different conditions.