Dirt and disorder.

Seventh in 8-part historical documentary series on the impact of technology on everyday life during the past 150 years. Cleanliness is one of the ways in which the western world measures civilization. Dirt and Disorder picks out some outstanding advances in public health measures and awareness in the western world, from the construction of the Paris sewers in the 1850s, through advertisers' attempts to use the germ as a ploy to market all kinds of domestic cleansing agents in the 1950s. It also examines post-war urban renewal in the U.S., the proliferation of technology in every aspect of life and the reactions this generated, the fashion for recycling and the 1990s trend away from hi- tech products to an illusory return to nature.