Original subtitles

- [Narrator] It's at the core of

our planet's $7 trillion construction industry,

sheltering more than half of the world's population.

- [Eric] Basically, it's the primary building material.

- [Narrator] It teems with billions of living organisms,

and can move on its own with deadly results.

- [Dr. Brands] The Dust Bowl in the 1930s

was the greatest environmental disaster in American history.

- [Narrator] So, whether you're playing in the mud-

- Yeah!

[mud splats]

- [Narrator] Or racing on it,

[engines revving]

you'll never get your hands dirty the same way again,

on "Modern Marvels" Down and Dirty.

[lively electronic music]

You know the phrase, "Dull as dirt?"

Well, it's not.

[light rock music]

- We think of it just as a common thing.

It's, I don't want my kids tracking it into the house.

But if we didn't have dirt, we wouldn't have life on earth.

- [Narrator] Just a little of it can support a universe.

- A clump of soil this size

has as many organisms in it as all the people on the Earth.

- [Narrator] But a lot of people on earth live in dirt, too.

- It's used today to house

about half the people that live on the planet Earth.

[rain falling]

[thunder rumbles]

- It's also a purifier.

Water drains through clean, good soil,

and comes out pure, clean, we can drink it.

[lively rock music]

- [Narrator] We spend a lot of time digging in dirt,

because it holds a wealth of valuable materials.

And in it hide the secrets of ancient civilizations.

Most of us are surrounded by dirt all of our lives,

and add to it when we die.

[explosive blasting]

To keep us on the move, we move an awful lot of dirt,

while building millions of miles of roads,

highways, and freeways.

Usually we top off transportation infrastructure

with a layer of concrete or asphalt.

[lively rock music]

But sometimes, when we're in a sporting mood,

it's all about driving on dirt.

[engine revving]

At 16 locations across North America each year,

a lot of earth-moving expertise goes into the quick

yet precise transformation of pristine baseball

or football stadiums into dirt obstacle courses,

for a motor sport event known as Supercross.

It started in 1972, and is considered one

of the first extreme motor sports.

- Supercross is basically taking an outdoor motocross track

and condensing it into a football or baseball field.

And when you condense it, obviously,

you're gonna have super obstacles,

so, [chuckles] that's why we call it Supercross.

These guys come out here,

and they take a 400-pound motorcycle

and make it look easy.

- [Narrator] How do you build a Supercross course?

We went to Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas to find out.

The first task is to protect the venue's

nearly $2 million worth of synthetic turf.

- That process includes laying down

about 52 rolls of plastic down on the floor,

and importing 13 tractor trailer loads,

the equivalent of 6,500 sheets of plywood, on this field.

Once we get the plywood down and in place,

we're gonna import a road base type material.

[light rock music]

- [Narrator] The road base serves as a work surface,

able to support the heavy equipment.

Once it's in place, it's time to haul in

the dirt for the track.

- Just over those trees on the corner parking lot

of the stadium is where we keep our dirt pile

here in Las Vegas.

Sits there all year long, we come in in March

for Monster Jam World Finals, use the dirt.

[crowd cheering] [engine revving]

Two months later, we're back in here with Supercross,

and back processing the dirt.

[machinery rumbling]

- Right now, it's a 70/30 mixture,

70% clay, 30% sand.

We add that sand in there to keep

that moisture deep inside the clay,

keep that moisture during the track

so the track doesn't dry out, it doesn't get hard packed,

and doesn't get dusty for the fans.

[machinery rumbling]

- On a typical Supercross track,

we use a about 5,500 yards of dirt,

which equates to about 500 tandem wheel dump truck loads.

[truck beeping]

- This is freshly brought in from the stockpile.

As you could tell, it's very loose.

It also has a lot of the clumping factors

necessary to build the track and shape the jumps.

[machinery rumbling]

- Out here in Las Vegas, in the middle of the desert,

the water trucks will come in every few minutes

and add moisture to the dirt.

We have to do that in order for it to stay on the floor.

If it gets too dusty, we get a big wind,

this whole track could end up in the parking lot.

[lively rock music]

- [Narrator] Each Supercross course is designed and built

by a company called, appropriately enough, Dirt Wurx.

- We sit down with Dirt Wurx, and we develop a plan.

It's never the same track every time we come to the venue,

it's never the same track any other city,

and it's never the same track every year.

So, it's very difficult and challenging

to develop new tracks, new diagrams,

that are challenging, but yet safe to the riders.

- [Narrator] Front-end loaders carry the dirt

to areas where stakes mark the jumps that are to be built.

- Then, the bulldozer operator is the one

that actually shapes the jump,

shapes it into its primary form.

The dozer just running over it, running over the jump,

basically compacts this dirt,

and then they'll shape it with the blade

of the dozer after that.

And the smaller skid steers, the finishers,

they'll come in and actually smooth it all out,

what we call icing,

they'll smooth the sides of the jumps down

so it doesn't just look like a dirt pile there.

If you notice out here, all the sides of the jumps

are nice and iced, like a cake.

[machinery rumbling]

- What we're doing right now, as you can see behind me,

is we're building the whoops section.

Whoops section is a series of small bumps,

about 36 inches tall, and about 10 foot apart.

There'll be 50 of these things built.

These whoops section will challenge the riders

unlike no other obstacle on the track.

The idea behind it is to carry your momentum,

shift up, and stay on top,

and just skim across each face of them.

If you drop your front end in, it might be over for you.

[engines buzzing]

I'm standing by one of the larger obstacles

on the Supercross track, and that's the finish line.

As the Supercross competitors come flying

through this section and clip up into fourth gear,

they'll be flying more than 75 feet to the landing,

and the takeoff is more than 10 feet tall.

It's very critical to get the degree and pitch just right.

- [Announcer] He will do it!

He will win his second AMA Supercross

and FIM World Championship,

in one of the wildest championship seasons

in Supercross history!

- People say dirt's cheap.

Dirt's not cheap.

This is a pretty expensive operation

you've got going on behind me.

But people pack the stands,

and it makes it all worth it in the end.

- [Narrator] Many other sports, like horse racing,

rely on well-chosen dirt, too.

Baseball fields use mixtures of sand, silt,

and clay to create the best surface.

[upbeat rock music]

The pitcher's mound usually has a higher clay content,

so that it will hold its shape.

But there's another kind of dirt

that's absolutely essential to pro baseball.

Every single baseball put into play

at all Major and Minor League games

must be first rubbed with Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud.

- We get issued our mud at the league meetings every year.

I just know that it comes from a secret spot

in a river in New Jersey.

[crowd shouting]

- [Narrator] It's this man, Jim Bintliff

of Southern New Jersey, who provides it.

- We're off to the secret location

to get this year's rubbing mud.

- [Narrator] Supplying it isn't a full-time job.

Jim works the night shift, operating a printing press,

leaving his days free to collect

the mud pro baseball has come to rely on.

[light rock music]

- In the late 1930s, the umpires were looking for a way

to take the gloss off a new baseball,

make it easier for the pitcher to grip,

give them more control.

Lena Blackburne, being a Major League player

and manager knew of this mud.

He gave it to the umpires, and found that

it was perfect for what they were looking for.

Lena was a good friend of my grandfather.

So, when he passed away,

he left the mud to my grandfather,

who left it to my father, who left it to me.

There's only a handful of people that know

the location of the mud,

and that's why you're gonna turn the camera off right now.

[upbeat rock music]

- [Narrator] The tools of the trade are pretty basic.

Five-gallon plastic buckets, a shovel,

and some soon-to-be worthless shoes.

- [Jim] I've been collecting mud for 30 years, plus.

I collect three to six buckets a trip,

and I provide about 900 pounds of mud every year.

All right, the tide's gotta be low,

and tide's perfect.

Now, it's time to get dirty.

- [Narrator] Since this part of the river is near the ocean,

it's affected by tides.

When the tide goes out, the mud hole is revealed.

This stuff is slippery, so Jim treads carefully down

to where he harvests the mud.

- The thing that makes this mud so special is,

the mineral content

is different than most other areas.

Have a high content of feldspar,

which is part of the quartz family.

- [Narrator] It's the feldspar that gives the mud

a gritty quality that scuffs the leather on the baseballs.

[upbeat rock music]

Before there was an official rubbing mud,

baseball tried dirt from the infield,

shoe polish, and even tobacco juice,

but they either damaged the ball's leather or its laces.

- From what my parents have told me,

Lena Blackburne discovered this

because he used to fish and swim in this area.

The reason I use the top layer of mud is,

it's a much cleaner mud.

If I go too deep,

the mud tends to get dark,

and it gets a nasty smell.

[mud sloshing]

- [Narrator] After filling his buckets,

it's time to head home.

- As that tide comes up, the water will spill

over into this area.

It'll be over my head, and it'll cover my mud pit again,

keeping the secret for me.

[lively rock music]

- [Narrator] Jim processes the mud in his backyard.

The first step is to strain it

to eliminate rocks and other debris.

But what happens next is another well-kept secret.

Once he has a finished batch, he hand-packs it

and prepares it for shipment in his den.

- Right now, I'm shipping

approximately 400 containers a year.

It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it.

- [Narrator] It was just a matter of time before someone

in this show was gonna say that.

While the baseball rubbing mud is sought after

for its sandpaper-like qualities,

[crowd cheering]

there's another so-called sport

where abrasive dirt can be a real problem.

In many sports, getting down in the dirt

is all just part of the game,

but this takes it to the extreme.

For three decades, a mud wrestling troupe known

as the Chicago Knockers performed all over the US.

But when they signed on for the State Fair in Hawaii,

dirt was almost a deal breaker.

[lively rock music] [crowd cheering]

- When we're on the mainland, we use Illinois topsoil.

It's sifted for us, comes right from

the Mississippi River basin.

And we love to use that Illinois topsoil.

But because we're here in Hawaii,

the Agriculture Department won't let us bring in the dirt.

- The Department of Agriculture has set in place

pretty strict rules in bringing soils into the islands.

This makes sense, because bacteria and fungi,

let out loose in this environment,

could wreak havoc on the natural ecosystems.

- So, we had to have special topsoil prepared for us,

sifted 32 times to get all the rocks,

sediment, and volcanic ash out of it.

Just take some sifted dirt here, add a little water,

and we're ready to go for mud wrestling.

- [Narrator] This troupe takes its wrestling seriously.

And as far as the dirt is concerned,

it's a full-contact sport.

They would prefer to be tussling in

their silky-smooth Mississippi mud,

[wrestler shrieks]

but at least this stuff isn't scratching.

- First time we came to Hawaii 25 years ago,

we used the local topsoil here.

It was full of volcanic ash,

it was like wrestling on sandpaper.

- Boy, did that stuff eat you up.

The irises in my eyes were burned, my elbows, my knees.

But that's all right, we're back.

- We had the same problem in England when we wrestled there.

Their topsoil was so rocky, we couldn't use it,

and we had to end up using chocolate cake mix.

[crowd cheering] [lively rock music]

- [Narrator] While the audiences may not see the appeal

of actually getting thrown down in the dirt,

not so for these wrestlers.

- I grew up playing and working on the farm,

playing in the dirt.

[wrestler grunts]

[chuckles]

Unlike city girls, I'm not afraid

to get my fingernails dirty.

- It's no big deal for me to get dirty.

I was raised in Clinton, Mississippi on a catfish farm.

I grew up living in the mud, practically.

Funnest times of my life.

So, you know, wrestling in the mud,

it just brings me back to my childhood,

and who doesn't miss their childhood, right?

- [Narrator] Getting down and dirty is part

of the fun of mud wrestling.

But how about living in it?

[light, upbeat music]

Many animals engineer homes out of dirt,

from towering African termite mounds

to the tunnels dug by prairie dogs.

And we do, too.

One of the oldest building materials still in use is adobe.

- Adobe originated in the Middle East,

and the word al-tob means mud brick,

and it's been used in all parts of the world.

Basically, it's the primary building material.

- [Narrator] In some places, adobe bricks

are still made by hand.

But in Tucson, Arizona, Clay Mine Adobe mass produces

its bricks with the help of machines.

[light rock music]

Workers mix the batches of mud in what's called a pug mill.

Modern adobe bricks usually contain

some cement for added strength,

but this batch is for a customer who wants bricks made

with just the traditional ingredients:

sand, clay, water, and straw.

Straw is typically used in adobe to act as a binder.

The pug mill operator uses a conveyor

to add in the dirt ingredients,

clay and sand.

The ratio has to be just right.

Too much clay will make bricks prone

to shrinkage and cracking,

too much sand makes them crumbly.

The pug mill has a scale that lets the operator know

how much of each he's adding.

- And then, he'll wait and let the mix settle down

in the pug mill,

and let the consistency even out.

And then, he knows it's time to bring in

either a touch more water

or a little bit more dirt to get the mix just right.

- [Narrator] In adobe brick making jargon,

the mix has to have the right slump.

- The term slump is just how thick your mud is.

Is it like brownie mix, or is it soupy?

- [Narrator] Once the mix is the right consistency,

it's time to make bricks.

- The finished mix is now coming into

the car that distributes the mud on the bridge.

All of the forms are displayed in the bridge.

And so, there's a valve at the bottom of the car

that opens up and lets the mud out.

And the vibrator comes on,

and the mud all goes down and fills the forms.

And then, there's a roller mechanism

that pushes it into the forms

so that when the operator looks,

and he sees, okay, they're all filled up,

maybe one helper comes over with a shovel

and makes sure they're all filled up.

[light rock music]

- [Narrator] The car may make several trips back and forth

to fill in all the forms.

Then, the operator lifts the forms from around the bricks

and rolls the whole mechanism into position

for the next batch.

- Each row, we do about 105 bricks,

and on a good day, we can do five or 6,000 of them.

In a good year, we'll probably do 250,000 of these.

[light woodwind music]

- [Narrator] In cities like Tucson,

building with adobe isn't just stylish, it's practical.

- Adobe works the best in the desert Southwest,

because we're basically concerned with

what's going on in the summer.

It's hot, you wanna stay cool.

When the sun hits the outside of the adobe,

it travels into the house at about an inch per hour.

So, it really never gets to the inside of the house.

At night, the sun goes down,

and the temperature starts going away.

[light, energetic music]

- [Narrator] But adobe mud bricks aren't the only way

to trick out your stylish new crib.

Dirt, some ride their motorcycles on it,

others like to wrestle in it.

But millions around the globe build their homes with it.

[light bluesy music]

Adobe may be the world's most common building material,

but there's another way to make sturdy walls out of dirt.

- Rammed earth is a building technique

that's been around for thousands of years.

Some examples are the Great Wall of China,

Tibetan temples, the big infill walls

for the castles in Europe, that are then lined with stone.

- [Narrator] Quentin Branch,

a builder of rammed earth structures,

is currently working on his own home in Oracle, Arizona.

- The Bobcat is our main tool.

We use a Bobcat to measure the dirt.

Bobcat carries one ton of dirt in each scoop of the bucket.

I lay out 10 tons of dirt,

and then I add Portland cement to stabilize the dirt,

dry mix it first.

And now, we mix in about 9% moisture.

[light rock music]

- [Narrator] To make the walls of the structure,

the Bobcat dumps the earth into wood forms.

Workers spread it out into an eight-inch layer.

Then, they use pneumatic tampers to compress

the eight inches down to five inches.

They keep repeating the process until the form is full.

- After we fill these forms in

with five-inch compacted layers,

we set another layer of forms on top.

So then, the wall will be at eight feet.

Fill the forms up to eight feet,

pull out from under, reset on top, and go up to 12 feet.

We just keep leapfrogging the forms up the wall.

The best soil for rammed earth is

a soil that has sharp particles in it,

and a good cross grade of different sizes

of particles of dirt.

The tamping creates such strong friction

between the particles that

it's like making a big sandstone block.

The house should last for hundreds of years.

- [Narrator] The thick walls of rammed earth homes

help keep the summer heat out like adobe,

but there's yet another, more unusual way

to beat the desert's extreme temperatures.

America's Southwest is also home

to strange structures, called Earthships.

These environmentally-friendly buildings feature walls made

out of discarded steel-belted radial tires,

filled with, what else?

Compacted dirt.

- The tires themselves are about 30, 32 inches thick,

and each tire has about three and a half wheelbarrows

of dirt pounded inside, solid.

And each tire weighs over 300 pounds when it's completed.

So, it's self-standing, there's no supports in it.

The house stands on its own from the friction.

[lively rock music]

- [Narrator] Once the dirt-filled tire walls are up,

the gaps are filled in with adobe

and recycled aluminum cans.

And then, the walls are finished off

with a final coat of Adobe.

- And the walls will be perfectly smooth.

You'll see no tires, you'll smell no tires,

you'll hear no tires.

- [Narrator] Building the thick walls next to a hillside

effectively eliminates the need

for heating and air conditioning,

even in the temperature extremes of the desert.

[light, calm music]

- The earth keeps about a 72 degree temperature

about eight and a half feet down.

These walls are eight and a half feet tall,

and they're buried completely behind with dirt.

So, the house, theoretically, according to the architect,

will not get above 80 degrees,

even in 101-degree temperature outside.

[lively rock music]

- [Narrator] Of course, we've used dirt

to build much larger structures than Earthships,

rammed earth homes, and adobe houses.

And we've created all sorts of enormous equipment

to move this stuff on a grand scale.

Even a medium-sized dam, like the Prado Dam

in Southern California, built to stop flood waters,

depends on an impressive amount of dirt.

Beneath the thin layer of rock

that protects it from wind and water erosion

are about 150 million cubic feet of clay and sand.

- To get a sense for how much material that is,

if you consider a football field,

that's approximately 3,000 feet high,

stacked up within the area of that football field.

[light rock music]

- [Narrator] Now, imagine building this sort

of enormous structure with muscle,

instead of modern machinery.

Surprisingly, it happened in what is now

the Central United States.

From about 700 to 1400 AD,

North America's largest ancient mound building population

lived in what is now called Cahokia,

located near the Mississippi River in Southwest Illinois.

[light music]

At its peak, the city of Cahokia covered

nearly six square miles, and had a population

of about 20,000 people.

The builders created over 120 mounds,

with more than 50 million cubic feet of earth,

all dug with primitive tools and carried in baskets.

At the center of this historical site is the largest mound,

called Monks Mound,

made with over 22 million cubic feet of dirt.

- This is the largest prehistoric earthwork

in the Americas.

The base of the mound covers over 14 acres,

which is even greater in size than

the Great Pyramid of Egypt.

It's not as tall, though, but it's 100 feet high.

It was entirely built by the Indians,

carrying basket loads of dirt,

perhaps 50 to 60 pounds at a time.

- [Narrator] It's estimated that it took

about 15 million basket loads of dirt to build this mound.

Over the centuries, the mounds suffered from erosion,

and some were reduced or removed by later inhabitants,

so the original sizes are uncertain.

But Cahokia holds an even greater mystery.

What happened to this once thriving city?

- Starting around 1200 AD,

we start to see a decline in population here at Cahokia.

But by 1400, the site had been essentially abandoned,

and we don't know where all the people went.

- [Narrator] Theories include warfare, climate change,

and the depletion of the local natural resources,

including fertile soil.

[light instrumental music]

And we could be facing the same issues today.

When it comes to agriculture,

dirt's name rises in stature to soil.

[light rock music]

- Perhaps one of the best metaphors for soil

is the Earth's skin.

Our skin protects us, and soil protects the Earth,

that sustains life.

- [Narrator] And our earth is pretty thin-skinned,

because the plant growth we depend on happens

on the very surface, in the topsoil.

It's full of organic material,

including decomposed plants, and animals, and organisms.

- The bacteria and fungi are very important in soils,

because they decompose organic matter

and convert it from useless nutrients

to useful nutrients for plants.

- [Narrator] Scientists have identified

over 20,000 varieties of soil in the United States.

[light rock music]

They include some of the richest topsoils in the world,

from the nutrient-rich soils of the upper Midwest

to the acidic volcanic soils in Hawaii,

that are perfect for growing pineapples.

California's 400-mile-long Central Valley

contains very productive soils,

that allow everything from grapes

to cotton to flourish there.

- Our soils are alluvial soils,

which means it was carried from rivers centuries ago

from the Sierra Nevada Mountains,

and that that makes our soils very deep and very rich.

- [Narrator] Worldwide, rich, farmable soil

is the exception, and not the rule.

Irrigation and fertilizers help, but overall,

we're losing it faster than nature can make it.

- Farmland is being lost at a rate of

about 38,000 square miles per year, due to erosion,

urban encroachment, and other types of land conversion.

- Only about 10% of the Earth's surface is farmable,

but the population keeps increasing.

That's why we have to protect what we have.

[ominous music]

- [Narrator] About 90 years ago,

farmers in America's Midwest found out the hard way

how important it is to protect topsoil.

- The Dust Bowl in the 1930s was

the greatest environmental disaster in American history.

- [Narrator] Most of the 1930s was a period

of prolonged drought.

Historically, this part of the US

had experienced droughts before,

but the farmers that settled the area didn't know that.

They became known as sod busters.

- This is basically what the Blackland Prairie

of Texas looked like before farmers came here,

and before they started plying up the sub-soil

and the topsoil.

You had nothing but Prairie grasses.

This is what held everything together.

- They figured they would just plow it over

and plant the way they had in the East.

This worked as long as it rained,

but when it stopped raining,

there was nothing left to hold the soil in place.

- [Narrator] Nature took thousands of years

to make the topsoil on the plains,

but the winds just swept it away.

- The worst-hit region was the Southern plains,

which extend north from North Texas,

the Texas panhandle, through Oklahoma and Kansas,

into Southern Nebraska.

And probably the reason for this was

this is where the drought was the most severe.

- [Narrator] About 100 million acres

of the Southern plains turned into a wasteland.

- There'd be nothing to feed the animals,

there'd be nothing to grow,

there'd be no soil left to grow anything in.

You'd be left with nothing but your house.

[dramatic music]

The dust getting into your lungs would be

the exact same thing as what the miners

were going through out east.

Instead of black lung, they would have dirt lung.

- [Narrator] Over two million people decided

to give up and leave.

Food prices rose nationwide, deepening the Great Depression.

But from crisis came solutions.

- The Dust Bowl really helped to create

the Soil Conservation Service.

And one of the things the Soil Conservation Service

has recommended is planting trees as wind breaks.

That helped greatly to reduce wind erosion.

- I'm in an apple orchard now, and as you can see,

we let the native grasses grow here.

Years ago, farmers thought the weeds

would compete against their crop,

and would use herbicides and spray the ground clean.

Little did they know, they were killing their soil,

'cause there was nothing to feed the soil microbes.

- [Narrator] While farmers have adopted many new methods

to care for their topsoil,

most homeowners seem more concerned

about the appearance of their yards

than the health of their soil.

- When you take away your grass clippings,

when you take away the dead fruit on the ground,

when you do the weeds, and all that kind of stuff,

you're taking away that natural cycle that nature has.

[light rock music]

- [Narrator] Homeowners are able to replenish

the lost organic material

with soil amendments and potting soils,

made by companies like Kellogg Garden Products.

Trucks arrive at its Lockeford, California facility,

are lifted up, and sawdust and wood waste acquired

from other businesses, including lumber mills

and door and window manufacturers, pour out.

This serves as the base organic matter

for most of Kellogg's products.

A front-end loader dumps the wood material into a hopper,

that pours it onto a large shaker screen.

The wood particles that are fine enough fall

through the quarter-inch mesh.

The big stuff will be ground up and used later.

- Now that the particle size is fine enough

for our potting soil, we put iron into it.

This is granulated iron, now,

that will become available to the plants.

Here in California, especially, and most of the West Coast,

the pH is too high that iron is

just not available for the plant.

- [Narrator] The conveyor carries the material

to the back of the property

and deposits it into huge piles.

Other potting soil ingredients include nitrogen,

rich bat guano, and earthworm castings.

- Worm casting is nothing more than worm poop.

But they're really great, because they add fertility,

and at the same time, hormones

that actually stimulate root growth.

- [Narrator] Then, the mixture composts

for three to four months.

- And if I dig into this, what you're gonna see is

all this steam coming out.

See it coming out?

That's because it's gotten so hot.

The microbes in there start breaking down

all those good materials we put together,

all that good organic stuff, and as they break it down,

they release heat as energy.

And this temperature in here can get up to 140, 150 degrees.

[light rock music]

- [Narrator] Once the pile is composted,

it's loaded into the hoppers outside the packing plant.

- This is our finished potting soil.

We're add some water to it, then going up here,

we're adding pearlite.

Now, pearlite is a rock that's expanded during heat,

and it's kinda like popcorn, it blows up.

And what that does for us is it adds air spaces

in the potting soil so it doesn't compact.

- [Narrator] Machines help workers bag the potting soils

and other products inside the packing plant.

- On this machine, we produce about 26 bags a minute.

Over all production, with all different products,

we produce about 25 to 30,000 units in a day.

[light, upbeat rock music]

- [Narrator] This is one of three Kelloggs facilities.

The total yearly output is about 10 million bags.

They're shipped all over the Western United States,

and help keep gardens green and lush.

Even dirt has the ability to become something beautiful.

For thousands of years, clay has been used

to make pottery and other ceramics.

Silicate sand is melted to create glassworks.

But Scott Wade, of Wimberley, Texas

uses common, everyday dirt to make his works of art

on an unusual canvas, a dirty windshield.

[light, upbeat music]

Of course, this means one rainstorm,

and it's time to start a new one.

[light rock music]

Prep for this artist means driving back and forth

on dirt roads near his home.

- This dirt that is on this road makes

this great, fine dust.

It's limestone,

and a little bit of clay mixed in helps it stick.

And it's just very powdery.

It's great to work with.

It just adheres to the glass over the course

of driving a week or so down a dirt road,

and makes a terrific canvas for dirty car art.

- [Narrator] Scott makes it a point to buy cars

with the type of upright rear windows

that best catch the dust.

- Got my canvas all prepared.

I've got my tools, a rubber paint shaper tool,

assorted brushes,

whatever might work for this particular piece.

I've got my visual reference, I'm ready to start.

So, let's go.

[light rock music]

- [Narrator] His drawings include original works

and creations of everything,

from dusty classic paintings by the masters,

to dirty dogs playing poker.

- I have a degree in commercial art,

and I work as a graphical user interface designer.

This kind of was a hobby for me,

because I'd come home from work, and you know,

it's kind of a high-stress job, working at a computer,

sitting at a desk.

So, this gave me an opportunity to kinda get outside

and do some stuff.

I just always had dirty car windows.

- [Narrator] Scott has been doing his dirty car art

for as long as he can remember,

but it became more than just a hobby

when someone posted some of his work on the internet.

- It went kind of viral.

And it just surprised me to no end,

because you know, I thought to myself,

"Why would anybody wanna look

"at dirty pictures on the internet?"

- [Narrator] Ever since, Scott has worked

on advertising campaigns, and is in demand at art festivals.

[lively rock music]

[Scott blowing dirt]

- And for a show about dirt, I give you a handful of dirt.

[people laughing]

- [Narrator] And what can you do with

just a handful of dirt?

How about rub it all over yourself?

Lots of people do, and they're willing

to pay for the privilege.

- Well, for time immemorial,

mud has been used for therapeutic value,

cleansing, and ritual uses.

[people laughing]

- [Narrator] The Glen Ivy Spa in Southern California

offers a variety of treatments,

but the big draw is Club Mud.

- When our guests come to use Club Mud,

the first thing they do is enter the pool right here.

It's easiest when your skin is a little bit wet,

the mud's gonna go on a lot smoother.

They just grab a handful of mud from the center,

rub a thin layer all over.

You can put it from your head to your toes.

- The red clay comes from a local source,

and mixed with our water, makes this very fine paste.

The secret to this is, it's the, don't tell anybody,

but it's the same material that roof tiles

and paving stones and bricks are made out of,

without any of the additives.

It's just the fine red clay with a high iron content.

- [Narrator] To mix up a batch of clay,

all it takes is water and bare feet.

[clay sloshing]

- We bring in about 40 tons a year of the dry clay.

This is gonna be mixed up to a consistency of pizza dough.

[light orchestral music]

- [Narrator] After Club Mud's patrons

have smeared the clay all over themselves,

it's time to take it easy and let it dry.

Then, the most important step, rubbing it off.

- The mud's an exfoliating treatment,

so it's gonna get all the impurities, and dirt,

and toxins out of your pores, as well as take all the dead,

dry skin off the surface.

So, when people are done showering off,

their skin is clean and smooth.

- We've been using this red clay as an exfoliant

for many, many years.

That's the therapeutic benefit, but mostly,

it's just plain fun.

[woman laughs]

[light instrumental music]

- [Narrator] In Calistoga, California,

the Golden Haven Spa is one of many in the area

offering another way to get covered in mud,

immersion in tubs filled with a hot,

very thick, and somewhat sulfurous-smelling concoction.

It's a mix of clay, peat moss, and mineral water

from the hot springs on the property.

- The peat moss, what it does is it helps keep you afloat,

while the clay helps pull toxins out from the body,

while the mineral water that we have here on premises

helps relax the muscles from the heat and everything.

Mud tubs here have pipes that carry

the 145-degree mineral water,

to help keep the mud tubs very warm.

[mud squelching]

- [Narrator] After the allotted time for the treatment,

it takes a bit of effort to work your way back

out of the thick and heavy mud.

Then, it's into the mineral water enriched showers

to rinse it off.

- While they're showering, what we then do

is come in, we mix the tubs,

bank them, flood them.

And this is a cleaning process

that takes place after every use.

Now, we're all done and ready to meet the next people.

- [Narrator] We have a strange relationship with dirt.

We're willing to pay to be covered in mud,

but what about all the dirt we don't want?

For thousands of years, people have been asking

the same question,

how do we get this stuff off our clothes?

Although we live in a world of dirt,

we're obsessed with keeping it off our cars,

our carpets, and especially our clothes.

- The average household does about 300 loads

of laundry a year, and that means about 1,100 wash loads

are started every second of every day in the United States.

That's a lot of laundry.

- [Narrator] For over half a century,

one detergent has washed more clothes than any other.

- Tide launched in 1946.

It was the first synthetic laundry detergent

that was launched on a national basis.

[commercial jingle plays]

And it skyrocketed to market leadership

because of its ability to take out and remove dirt.

[lively rock music]

- [Narrator] Ohio is home to one

of Procter and Gamble's main research facilities.

- In this facility, we have roughly 600 appliances,

washers and dryers, helping us do over 20,000 loads

of laundry in a year.

Doing this many loads enables us to determine

how we can best modify our formula to remove more dirt.

- [Narrator] At laboratory workstations in

the building's Analytical Sciences Department,

chemists and other researchers study fabrics,

the substances that soil and stain them,

and chemical and enzyme cleaning agents.

Then, they test how they interact with each other.

They're determined to root out

even the smallest particles of dirt.

- We're in the microscopy lab at Procter and Gamble,

and we have a cotton sock that, today,

we've cut a piece out, and we've mounted that piece

inside the electron microscope.

And we're gonna start looking at it at about 30X,

and we'll work our way up to higher magnifications.

At 30 times, we only see the sock fibers.

And when we zoom in to 500 times,

then we can see dirt really buried inside the fibers,

and actually around all the fibers.

Now, we're in a clump of dirt,

and we're gonna zoom in onto that.

- [Narrator] At 10,000 times, to a trained eye,

the dirt's composition is clearly a type of clay.

- And then, we do an x-ray, and we can see the components

that make up that, or the elements that make it up,

which are magnesium, calcium, and iron,

and that's what the components are that's in the clay

that we're seeing on the actual cotton sock.

By doing this analysis, we can better target

the detergents and the enzymes required to remove those.

- [Narrator] One of the major cleaning components

that helps lift out embedded dirt is called a surfactant.

- A surfactant stands for surface active agent.

A surface active agent, or a surfactant,

is one molecule that has two very unique

and distinct properties.

[light music]

- [Narrator] One end of a surfactant molecule

is attracted to water.

The other end is hydrophobic,

and attaches itself to anything else,

including dirt, oil, and grease.

The agitation in washing machines

helps create a tug of war.

The opposing forces of the surfactant wet the dirt

and work it loose from the fabric.

[lively, upbeat music]

Over the years, Tide has added new enzymes

to attack specific stains,

and diversified with different fragrances.

But after almost four decades,

it introduced the biggest change.

- In 1984, Tide launched liquid detergent.

At the time, the predominant form on the market was powder,

but fast forward to today, and Tide is a dominant player.

And the biggest manufacturing facility

for liquid detergent in the world

is Procter and Gamble's facility in Lima, Ohio.

[light rock music]

- [Narrator] Trucks and train cars deliver

the huge amounts of what's needed to make up

the different laundry products manufactured here,

including the complex formulations of Tide

that contain over 50 ingredients.

The Lima plant's packing lines run 24 hours a day,

seven days a week.

- Bottles arrive to the packing line based on orders.

They're already in the box, and they never leave the box.

They're filled here on the packing lines,

and they leave the plant in about nine minutes.

- [Narrator] Every minute, one packing line outputs

enough Tide to last a family of four for 20 years.

Because of the volume of product trucked,

instead of driving on public streets,

Procter and Gamble built their own mile and a half long road

to their 1.1 million square foot, fully automated warehouse.

- The Empire State Building would fit inside this building,

still with room for football fields on either end.

It never shuts down, it never takes a break,

and it's always ready to do what we need it to do.

- [Narrator] Forklifts unload the pallets of Tide

and other Procter and Gamble products

off the trucks and into the automated shelving system.

[upbeat rock music]

Each pallet is transported to one

of the 94,000 storage positions

inside this dark, cavernous maze.

No need for lights, computers and robots

are doing all the work.

When an order needs to be filled,

it's delivered to the other side of the facility.

- We're at the outbound end of the automated warehouse.

An order has been automatically staged here by the computer.

That signals a driver to come and begin unloading.

In just a few minutes, this laundry product

will be on its way.

25% of the laundry loads completed in the United States

are completed with products shipped out of this warehouse.

[upbeat rock music]

- [Narrator] One thing that laundry detergent manufacturers

can count on is a continuing demand for their products.

We always find plenty of ways to get dirty.

[woman chuckles]

[people chattering]

[mud sloshing]