Individual Waste Reduction Model (iWARM) Tool
Recycling everyday objects, such as paper, bottles, and magazines saves energy. The materials that are recycled are used to create the products you buy. This means less virgin material needs to be mined or harvested, processed, manufactured, and transported—all of which consume energy.
On this page:
Full iWARM Tool
The Individual Waste Reduction Model (iWARM) tool(6 pp, 122 K, July 18, 2016) is based on the Waste Reduction Model (WARM), but is intended for the individual users rather than a business of organization. The iWARM tool is a downloadable Microsoft Exel file that can be used to find out how much energy is saved by recycling small quantities of common waste materials. The tools illustrates the impact of recycling by translating the amount of energy saved into the amount of time an appliance can be powered. The tool also displays the results in a graph and provides assumptions, calculations and conversions.
iWARM Widget
EPA used data from the iWARM model to create the Save Energy by Recycling web widget. This simplified, interactive widget allows you to choose a recyclable (aluminum can, glass bottle, plastic bottle, weekly magazine and a plastic grocery bag) and then choose an appliance (air conditioner, hair dryer, laptop computer and 60W equivalent compact flourescent light bulb or CFL) to find out how long that appliance can be powered for by recycling the material chosen.