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track and voluntarily report greenhouse gas emissions reductions from several different waste <br />management practices. WARM, last updated in June 2014, recognizes 46 material types. <br />MTCE (Metric tons of carbon equivalent), and MTCO2E (Metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions) are figures commonly used when <br />discussing greenhouse gas emissions. For more information about the process of measuring the environmental benefits of waste <br />reduction, visit htto://epa.gov/climatechange/wvcd/waste/measureghg.html#click <br />What do all these numbers mean? <br />In addition to preventing pollution, an important impact of recycling is that is conserves a huge <br />amount of energy. Making products and packaging from raw materials harvested from nature <br />uses a much larger amount of energy than using recycled materials. <br />Every manufactured item has the energy used to make it "embedded" into it. Recycling takes <br />advantage of that energy, as it is easier and more energy efficient to make a glass bottle from <br />another glass bottle than from raw materials. <br />The WARM model and other calculators measure the difference between recycling all these <br />tons of materials and using them to make new products versus sending them to an incinerator <br />and making replacement products from raw materials. This difference is expressed as the <br />amount of CO2 that was not produced because we did not have to make and use all the energy <br />that would have been needed if we used raw materials. <br />The numbers above help municipalities calculate and track their environmental footprint. For <br />more information about the process of measuring the environmental benefits of waste <br />reduction, visit https://www.epa.gov/warm. <br />12 <br />