diff --git a/bridges/NordbayernBridge.php b/bridges/NordbayernBridge.php
index 6aa2d5a9..52b1f3ec 100644
--- a/bridges/NordbayernBridge.php
+++ b/bridges/NordbayernBridge.php
@@ -47,15 +47,6 @@ class NordbayernBridge extends BridgeAbstract {
 		)
 	));
 
-	private function startsWith($string, $startString) {
-		$len = strlen($startString);
-		return (substr($string, 0, $len) === $startString);
-	}
-
-	private function contains($haystack, $needle) {
-		return (strpos($haystack, $needle) !== false);
-	}
-
 	private function getUseFullContent($rawContent) {
 		$content = '';
 		foreach($rawContent->children as $element) {
@@ -109,7 +100,7 @@ class NordbayernBridge extends BridgeAbstract {
 
 		// exclude police reports if descired
 		if($this->getInput('policeReports') ||
-			!self::contains($item['content'], 'Hier geht es zu allen aktuellen Polizeimeldungen.')) {
+			!str_contains($item['content'], 'Hier geht es zu allen aktuellen Polizeimeldungen.')) {
 			$this->items[] = $item;
 		}
 
diff --git a/lib/php8backports.php b/lib/php8backports.php
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..aa68b77a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/php8backports.php
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+<?php
+/**
+ * This file is part of RSS-Bridge, a PHP project capable of generating RSS and
+ * Atom feeds for websites that don't have one.
+ *
+ * For the full license information, please view the UNLICENSE file distributed
+ * with this source code.
+ *
+ * @package	Core
+ * @license	http://unlicense.org/ UNLICENSE
+ * @link	https://github.com/rss-bridge/rss-bridge
+ */
+
+// based on https://github.com/laravel/framework/blob/8.x/src/Illuminate/Support/Str.php
+
+if (!function_exists('str_starts_with')) {
+	function str_starts_with($haystack, $needle) {
+		return (string)$needle !== '' && strncmp($haystack, $needle, strlen($needle)) === 0;
+	}
+}
+
+if (!function_exists('str_ends_with')) {
+	function str_ends_with($haystack, $needle) {
+		return $needle !== '' && substr($haystack, -strlen($needle)) === (string)$needle;
+	}
+}
+
+if (!function_exists('str_contains')) {
+	function str_contains($haystack, $needle) {
+		return $needle !== '' && mb_strpos($haystack, $needle) !== false;
+	}
+}
diff --git a/lib/rssbridge.php b/lib/rssbridge.php
index 2e7fbf2a..47a92e73 100644
--- a/lib/rssbridge.php
+++ b/lib/rssbridge.php
@@ -80,6 +80,7 @@ require_once PATH_LIB . 'XPathAbstract.php';
 require_once PATH_LIB . 'html.php';
 require_once PATH_LIB . 'error.php';
 require_once PATH_LIB . 'contents.php';
+require_once PATH_LIB . 'php8backports.php';
 
 // Vendor
 define('MAX_FILE_SIZE', 10000000); /* Allow larger files for simple_html_dom */