United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created the Waste Reduction Model (WARM) to help solid waste planners and organisations track and voluntarily report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, energy savings, and economic impacts from several different waste management practices.
WARM is a tool that calculates and totals the GHG emissions, energy savings and economic impacts of baseline and alternative waste management practices, including source reduction, recycling, combustion, composting, anaerobic digestion and landfilling. The model calculates emissions, energy units, and economic factors across a wide range of material types commonly found in municipal solid waste in the following categories:
- Metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2E)
- Energy units (million British Thermal Unit - BTU)
- Labor hours
- Wages ($)
- Taxes ($)