zlacker

>>hrl+(OP)
This should be an economics piece, not an environmental piece. The author states that "one of iron’s unalterable properties is that it rusts" yet further on acknowledges the existence of stainless steel.

There's nothing wrong with reinforced concrete, but the incentives to produce long lasting buildings are not there. The cheapest bidder will generally win and their building will last the "design life" of the building, but often not much more. The simplest way to change this is to extend the design life, which would result in stainless steels or another more expensive material being used in this application.

>>brutus+J5
> The author states that "one of iron’s unalterable properties is that it rusts" yet further on acknowledges the existence of stainless

Even stainless steel rusts, just more slowly. Roughly 10-100x more slowly, judging by https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1124/ML112490377.pdf and https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/23/8705/pdf.

>>wahern+0c
You are correct for certain definitions of 'stainless steel.' However as other comments have alluded to, some grades of 'stainless steel' will rust so slowly that they will survive orders of magnitude longer than recorded history. For example, some "Hyper-duplex" stainless steels are designed to resist corrosion in seawater that is above boiling point. This steel is probably not economical for building construction, but if you wanted it to last for millenia, it may be the optimal choice.