by a switch from concrete to steel (Sachs, Loske, Linz, & et al, 1998, p. 106-107). This could easily be increased to a sixfold improvement if scrap iron and steel were used, and these numbers could be further improved if newer electric steel smelting methods replaced traditional oxygenation methods. An interesting sidebar to these findings were the insights of the Wuppertal research committee about the increasing market dominance of concrete over steel in construction after WWII. They found that it had little to do with costs, and much more with engineering fashionconcrete being seen as more modern and elegant (von Weizsacker, Lovins, & Lovins, 1997, p. 78-79). A number of life cycle assessments comparing steel and concrete for specific buildings have also been done. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) undertook such a study (as part of a general environmental assessment) for its East Campus Project, a proposed 450,000 square foot building complex in Cambridge Massachusetts. It compared models for steel and reinforced concrete superstructures in eleven categories: energy consumption; natural resource use; toxics use; transportation of materials; solid waste production; recyclability of materials; air pollution emissions; water pollution emissions; global warming potential; and two occupational health categories: fatal and non-fatal injuries and illnesses. Results showed steel superior in seven of the eleven categories. The only impact category where concrete was clearly preferable was water pollution, due to the large amount of water used in steel-making processes for cooling, quenching, and pollution control and the greater abundance of toxic chemicals used in steel making. In the natural resources category, it found that concrete would use almost six times as many raw materials as steel (MIT East Campus Project team, 2002).