Legal basis for diesel particulate filters
In general
The legal base for diesel particulate filters originally comes from the employment protection to keep health and safety at work. Already in 1775 the so called “chimney sweeper disease” was discovered in England. In these days chimney sweeper died very young. Autopsies showed that their lungs were over and over interspersed with soot particles. Diseases like allergies, asthma or cancer were elicited by them. A reason for the early death of the chimney sweepers can be seen in the unprotected contact with the soot of the unregulated house firing. The soot particles were inhaled wholeheartedly. (see: Handbuch Verbrennungsmotoren, 2002, S.669)
Since then the development went on and a lot of measures to reduce the emissions were taken. De-spite of this, in the past, released by the triumphal procession of the diesel engine, a new emittent of fine particles showed up. Due to their excellent efficiency diesel engines became an indispensable part of lots of industries. On the other side of the medal, they are emitting fine particles during the combustion process. This is the reason to prevent human beings from the emissions of these ma-chines. Once again it was up to the labour protection in the 80s to aprove regulations that limit the emissions of diesel engines which are close to human beings. The adherence of these regulations is the commitment of both entrepreneurs and the Employers Liability Insurance Association.
