Synthetic stucco is highly toxic !
Continued..
Nothing Green about synthetic stucco.
I know of someone (not mentioned here), that is receiving a Leed's Certification and government grant for a house with synthetic stucco. In other words, the federal government is paying them to build an environmentally friendly house, that isn't environmentally friendly at all, but environmentally hostile.
Cement stucco, that is, cement, lime and sand are about as environmentally friendly as you can get. Cement and lime are made from rocks, which come from the earth and go back to the earth because it is earth.
Wall is then filled and rodded off in between the screeds. In concrete work, a straight edge is called a screed, and rodding off the concrete is called screeding. In plastering, the straight edge is called a rod.
The difference between cement mortar and concrete is that concrete has gravel, another earth friendly material. If concrete was toxic, I'm sure no one would build water reservoirs, dams, aqueducts, etcetera, from concrete.
We do work with a chemical that is toxic, and that is the acrylic additive we use for a bonder in recoating old stucco, and bonding to concrete, etc. Bonding admixtures, however contain no VOC's, and are far less toxic than a layer of paint on a house. I am not professing to be 100% earth friendly, but real stucco is about as earth friendly as there is for a building material.
It does really infuriate me to see "Green" building and earth friendly on synthetic stucco houses.
They only thing green here is the money somebody puts in his pocket. You may turn green breathing this stuff.