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Do you care about your carbon footprint?

Ubbquittious

Now that things are tigering again the greenies and the lads that just bought a new electric car on the PCP are trying to make the carbon footprint fashionable again since it's demise in 2008.

As people poshen up with the rise of this new tiger expect to see an increase in people voluntarily enduring token hardships so they can pretend they care about the environment and signal their virtues. They'll be buying more short-lived Chinese consumer goods with plenty rare earth metals packed inside than ever before but we'll gloss over that. If they really wanted to do something about the environment they'd ban all this crap that comes in and only lasts a couple of years before it breaks or goes obsolete.

I don't think Ireland and UK have the capability to make or break the eventual extinction of mankind due to excessive CO2 emissions if such an event is on the cards. We could even stand to gain by going completely the opposite way of the rest of the world as they "go green". Build a massive coal fired powerplant just across the border in post-Brexit NI with a huge chimney and burn the coal that nobody wants to buy anymore. Import loads of petrol and daysul through NI on the QT without the boys over in d'EU knowing about it.

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DEFTLEFTHAND

I love how actors like Clooney and DiCaprio like to pontificate on this subject whilst flying around the world on private jets.

jimgoose

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

I love how actors like Clooney and DiCaprio like to pontificate on this subject whilst flying around the world on private jets.

Yes. And it is utterly unimportant and without consequence if these gowls just stay where they are, unlike five-star generals or CEOs of mighty corporations, and so forth who sometimes need to stride across the globe.

diomed

What we do does not matter.
What the manufacturers and legislators do matters.
Stop plastic packaging.

odyssey06

Shenshen wrote: »

It's a reasonable question, and I wish it would be easier to find details on how to make that calculation online.
Our dishwasher packed in a few weeks ago and we were looking for a new one. Now, they all have energy efficiency labels with a lovely, easy to understand ranking and colour-coding. Only there is next to no details as to what those ratings ACTUALLY mean, in real numbers.

As if the calculation won't be tricky enough... The other thing to remember is that you're unlikely to get double figures out of the new models, they don't seem to be built to last like the old ones... so you'll probably need to calculate the cost based on expected service length years.

Hooks Golf Handicap

I realised a long time ago that any amount of tokenism on my part wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to this global problem.

I recycle just to even out the waste in my bins to be honest.

Gave up years ago worrying about removing the plastic film off meat containers & washing the trays, bugger that, all into the landfill bin.

I was on board until they began claiming cows farting was a huge factor, they lost me after that.
It's like when someone says binge drinking is 4 drinks in one sitting, yeah . . . yeah . . gtfo

snow_bunny

Can anyone tell me is it better to buy cardboard cartons of milk rather than plastic?

The 2l of milk every couple of days is probably the bulk of our recycling, we try to buy fresh produce loose and the rest in recyclable glass rather than tins where possible. I'm aware that cartons are now inner lined with plastic so I'm not sure if the cardboard+plastic is better or worse than just plastic? If we could find a reliable glass bottle milk delivery in our area we would go for that but there isn't.

jimgoose

Hooks Golf Handicap wrote: »

...It's like when someone says binge drinking is 4 drinks in one sitting, yeah . . . yeah . . gtfo

Yeah, you're just about aboard with the new, healthy, no-growth-hormones, low-fat, high-polyunsaturate, humane, low-alcohol, three-speed-bicycle-with-cute-little-basket-huzzah way of going about business and then some fucken yahoo comes out with that kind of a one. You know what? You can take your beard, and your chickpea soup, and your hand-knitted gin, and your sausages made out of wasabe-flavoured sawdust or whatever-the-fuck that stuff is, and get the deuce out of my house!!

Badly Drunk Boy

I don't very actively think much about my carbon footprint but it's probably healthier than a lot of other people's. I don't drive (work is a 7 minute cycle away), I rarely fly (possibly only left the country 3 or 4 times in the last 10 years), and I throw the correct stuff into the recycling bin, unlike a lot of people, who don't seem too bothered about what stuff they put into their green bin.

mr chips

I figured that with the fridge and washing machine, more modern appliances seem to have a much shorter lifespan than older ones, so allowing for the energy embodied in manufacturing and transporting a new replacement potentially every 3-5 years I decided to replace/repair only when necessary. Apart from a new water pump about 13 years ago, and a new door seal 4 years ago, the washing machine has given no bother. We put in solar panels a couple of years ago - we live in NI and there was a small feed-in tariff for any surplus we send to the grid (the payback period has worked out at 5-6 years), so running the washing machine and tumble dryer during the day means they're either fully or partly powered by the sun. That means the difference in energy efficiency between our older appliances and more modern ones is no longer as important a factor as it might have been. Plus most of our water heating is now done via the immersion rather than the oil boiler, at little or no cost during the day. Just means doing some things one after the other rather than at the same time in order to maximise what the panels provide, so e.g. the dryer and the immersion wouldn't be put on simultaneously.

In terms of the car, there's a huge amount of energy and fuel consumption that goes into manufacturing and transporting a brand-new car. It's far better for to keep an older machine on the road and maintain it properly, not only in terms of carbon footprint/energy consumption but also from a financial perspective - the depreciation on a much older car is effectively zero. Plus I used to fuel my cars with biodiesel I got from a trusted supplier, who made it from recycled used cooking oil from local restaurants etc. So for about seven years, my cars burned virtually no fossil fuel for over a quarter of a million miles in total between them. I guess my carbon footprint was tiny in comparison to most other motorists.

You couldn't do that now with modern cars and their high-pressure fuel injection systems, plus most biodiesel nowadays comes from palm oil imported all the way from the likes of Indonesia, where they chop down rainforest to make way for palm plantations to feed the European demand for biodiesel to be added to all road fuel. Talk about taking a good concept and utterly ruining it ...

So yeah, I'd like to be able to convert my vehicles to electric as soon as the price of doing so comes into reach and the battery tech means I can drive either drive 300 miles on a single charge, or drive 200 miles and recharge within 10-15 minutes, and the batteries can withstand 1500 charge cycles without losing capacity. No more oil and filter changes, no more wondering about MAF sensors and turbos and fuel pumps and injectors, no more timing belts to replace, no more spending hundreds a year at the pump ... can't wait.

cantdecide

It's almost impossible to know the full effects (or otherwise) of any factor in isolation. One day it may all be proven beyond doubt to have been a giant waste of time. In the meantime, I'm going to keep listening to my instinct to be as responsible as I can... just in case it really does matter.

odyssey06 wrote: »

Don't worry, before greenhouse gas gets us, we'll all be dead from the fumes from all the diesel cars people were incentivised to buy to cut down on greenhouse gas.

You can say that ten times more. It's really more about shortening the life cycle of cars. Our country is hooked on VRT and new car sales. the changes in '08 were just a way of killing off a generation of older cars (regardless of how efficient the were) and conditioning the population to keep buying newer and newer 'green' cars. Perfectly good family cars go to the scrapyard every day because our tax regime is set up to kill the value of used cars ASAP.

snow_bunny

https://www.google.ie/search?q=plastic+in+the+ocean&client=safari&rls=en&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjyle2Vm7zZAhXsBcAKHUvQARgQ_AUICigB&biw=1296&bih=864#imgrc=Q16jqQOl8-cRtM:

Have a look at this and what plastic alone is doing to the planet. You don't have to believe in Global Warming or be a tree hugger to know that this is both disgusting and devastating. It isn't up for discussion or a matter of opinion, it's a fact that plastic waste is wrecking the planet in a multitude of ways.

People who can't be arsed recycling or feel that their efforts are pointless are just lazy IMO, if everyone tried to reduce, reuse and recycle it would go a long way towards preventing this getting even worse. There's absolutely no excuse for not doing your bit, lack of convenience doesn't count.

[Deleted User]

I lived in Xi'an for a rather long time. 6 coal & 3 oil power stations nearby to power the city. In the winter periods, there was a fog of smoke mixed with moisture in the air. Xi'an is a 2nd tier city. Roughly 8 million people. Then go further north to the province of Shanxi and you'd find some of the coal mines where everyone wears rebreathers because of the coal dust in the air, and the rivers regularly run black from the crap pumped into them.

I've been to quite a few 3rd world nations with similar attitudes towards their economy and environment. In first world nations, I've also seen waste being pumped into the rivers or simply pushed into a back area for it to be soaked into the soils.

TBH I don't really see how much difference "people" can make in this regard. The industries break the environmental laws, sometimes get charged, tie the charges up in legal red tape, or pay fines they can easily afford. And then back to the same behavior with a different coverup method.

So, no, I don't care about my own carbon footprint. I recycle because it's easy to do. I don't go out of my way to buy energy-saving products but they're generally nearby so it's just as convenient to get them as other products. But I don't fool myself into thinking I'm making much of an impact.

tweek84

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Quiet the opposite the amount of damage to the environment that is cause in producing the new more energy efficient 'eco friendly' products out weights running your older un-economical product for the rest of its life cycle or possible even your life cycle. Look at the broader picture these companies can't quantify the damage the manufacture of their cars is causing, the materials they are using and the methods the suppliers are using to extract the materials for the companies is not taken in to account.

Companies are scare mongering, hey it's good business sales are up.

Businesses don't care about the environmental impact no matter what they say if they can make money they will do what they want once it doesn't effect them financially, if we care about the environment they will find some way to make money off that.
Anyone remember eco friendly CFL bulbs, a survey carried out in Canada found:
"If all homes in Quebec were required to switch from (incandescent) bulbs to CFLs, there would be an increase of almost 220,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions in the province, equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 40,000 automobiles."

I can't wait for more survey and analysis to be carried out in the future.

mr chips

One thing I've done in the past 8-10 years or so is virtually stop buying bottled water. I always used to buy a bottle a day when I was getting a sandwich etc for lunch at work - meal deals have a lot to answer for - and three or four a week for taking to the gym. So that's 8 per week easy, or more than 400 a year ... Anyway, once I found out about how little of the plastic that goes into a recycling bin actually gets recycled (sometimes as little as 15%), and in this country at that, I just quit & started refilling a bottle with water from the tap instead. A quick daily rinse of a previously used bottle has so far kept me free of listeria or legionnaire's or whatever horrible illnesses are supposed to strike you down when you do that. When I think about it, I've gone from using 400+ plastic bottles a year to maybe two or three. By now, that must be a few thousand plastic bottles that don't need to be recycled, didn't have to be manufactured, and won't end up in the sea or in landfill.

But I hear one person doesn't make a difference.

Ubbquittious

tweek84 wrote: »

Anyone remember eco friendly CFL bulbs, a survey carried out in Canada found:
"If all homes in Quebec were required to switch from (incandescent) bulbs to CFLs, there would be an increase of almost 220,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions in the province, equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 40,000 automobiles."

Don't mind CFL's even some of the LED ones aren't that great. I've had a fairly expensive one with a fine lump of a heatsink on it pack up the other day. Probably used for less than 1,000 hours. I would have been better off with one of the ones that were banned.

Not a one-off either, I have had loads of expensive LED bulbs fail on me. Maybe the newer filament LED ones will be better but the problem with a lot of the heatsink ones seems to be that they still generate too much heat and end up roasting the power supply components.

Wibbs

mr chips wrote: »

I figured that with the fridge and washing machine, more modern appliances seem to have a much shorter lifespan than older ones, so allowing for the energy embodied in manufacturing and transporting a new replacement potentially every 3-5 years I decided to replace/repair only when necessary.

+1. I've noticed this in my lifetime. Appliances like fridges and the like lasting shorter periods of time compared to ones from years ago, with each decade the cycle becoming shorter. The fridge the family had when I was growing up lasted 20+ years and two moves. It was still going only the parents thought they should "upgrade". Successive fridges lasted 10, then 8, my current one is 6 and looking ropey already. Washing machines similarly. The older more "analogue" ones lasting much longer. Sure you might have to replace brushes in the motor or even the motor itself but the rest of the workings kept going. I must be on my fourth washing machine at this stage, in nearly every case the main or subsidiary board gave up the ghost. On that score spares were either hard to get or - and this is the kicker - nearly as expensive as a new machine(sometimes more if I paid a bod to install it), so you're encouraged to spend on a new one. Keep that churn going. However my washer drier I got from the folks who bought it in 1975(have the receipt somewhere) and it's still going strong. It has needed me going at it with the hammers and spanners a couple of times(very basic stuff), but drying clothes it still is. My first gas boiler lasted 20 years(and was still working), the next all fancy condenser save money(my arse!) and polar bears one, made it to around 5 before kicking the bucket. Oh and is it just me or am I the only one replacing the new fangled (non fluorescent) bulbs far more often?

In terms of the car, there's a huge amount of energy and fuel consumption that goes into manufacturing and transporting a brand-new car. It's far better for to keep an older machine on the road and maintain it properly, not only in terms of carbon footprint/energy consumption but also from a financial perspective - the depreciation on a much older car is effectively zero.

+1000. I mentioned in another thread hereabouts that a neighbour of mine is into the whole green thing and has looked a bit down on me for keeping a 20 year old car on the road. The same 20 year old car has cost me 200 quid per year for maintenance, does mid high 30's to the gallon and passes NCT emissions testing with ease. In the same period he's bought a new car every 3 years or so, got into hybrids and then electric which really upped the smug. When I point out the manufacturing costs, never mind the environmental costs of many of the rare elements in the batteries he just doesn't get it. And he's not a stupid man. We're constantly bombarded by the consumer culture and that each new purchase will help the trees and such, so I'm not surprised he and so many fall for this. The sheer criminal waste is astounding. I can bring you to any number of big yards around Dublin(and beyond) chock full of "old" cars over 10 years old. Cars that are essentially worthless(and makes depreciation very stark. Like 800 quid for a Merc that was 65,000 new). And most of the car will end up as waste beyond the bare metal that will end up going back into the system.

Recently I was in and out of hospital with a relative and the waste even there was astonishing. Sealed medical packs for bloods or whatever, opened up, one or two items used, the rest goes into the bin. Pretty much anything plastic you see in that environment is binward bound.

Until we tackle the consumer culture and our relatively recent need for the dopamine hit of new [insert object here], any talk of environmental considerations will be just lip service. I can't see it happening any time soon though. It's not ordinary folks to blame, its the manufacturers who of course need to keep the churn going. It's the retail sector that requires it. It's the lending institutions who sell "cheap" loans and credit. It's the governments and tax depts. that rely on this churn for tax returns and as indicators of a good economy. Until we change that narrative nothing else will change. To do that will require a lot of changes. The drive to grow populations for one. Ireland has a growing population but look at Europe where the growth is in the negative and how governments are trying to encourage more kids, or failing that importing more people by immigration. IMHO we need to reduce the world's population to one that is sustainable without the consumerist machine or less of it. When I was born the world's population was just over 3 billion, today it's over 7.5 billion. I can't recall the sky falling in when it was the lower figure.

Shenshen

snow_bunny wrote: »

Can anyone tell me is it better to buy cardboard cartons of milk rather than plastic?

The 2l of milk every couple of days is probably the bulk of our recycling, we try to buy fresh produce loose and the rest in recyclable glass rather than tins where possible. I'm aware that cartons are now inner lined with plastic so I'm not sure if the cardboard+plastic is better or worse than just plastic? If we could find a reliable glass bottle milk delivery in our area we would go for that but there isn't.

I'd say you're actually better off with the plastic bottles. The plastic can be recycled, the cardboard containers are lined with aluminuim and plastic, the composite cannot be recycled and isn't biodegradable, so it's really the worst of both.

Dakota Dan

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Now that things are tigering again the greenies and the lads that just bought a new electric car on the PCP are trying to make the carbon footprint fashionable again since it's demise in 2008.

As people poshen up with the rise of this new tiger expect to see an increase in people voluntarily enduring token hardships so they can pretend they care about the environment and signal their virtues. They'll be buying more short-lived Chinese consumer goods with plenty rare earth metals packed inside than ever before but we'll gloss over that. If they really wanted to do something about the environment they'd ban all this crap that comes in and only lasts a couple of years before it breaks or goes obsolete.

I don't think Ireland and UK have the capability to make or break the eventual extinction of mankind due to excessive CO2 emissions if such an event is on the cards. We could even stand to gain by going completely the opposite way of the rest of the world as they "go green". Build a massive coal fired powerplant just across the border in post-Brexit NI with a huge chimney and burn the coal that nobody wants to buy anymore. Import loads of petrol and daysul through NI on the QT without the boys over in d'EU knowing about it.

The thing about electric cars is they still need fuel to produce the electricity and the impact of manufacturing these cars especially the batteries. It wounds make more sense to hold onto old cars that are reasonably efficient for longer. Scrapping older cars to replace with electric causes more pollution.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Shenshen

Dakota Dan wrote: »

The thing about electric cars is they still need fuel to produce the electricity and the impact of manufacturing these cars especially the batteries. It wounds make more sense to hold onto old cars that are reasonably efficient for longer. Scrapping older cars to replace with electric causes more pollution.

And the thing about fossil fuel cars is that the fuel needs to be got from the ground, refined, and transported to the point of sales.
You can give an electric car a full charge on the amount of energy it takes to get one litre of petrol to your local petrol station.

I would never advocate people dump perfectly good cars to move to electric, but if your car is coming to the end of its life I would seriously suggest considering one of them.

tweek84

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Don't mind CFL's even some of the LED ones aren't that great. I've had a fairly expensive one with a fine lump of a heatsink on it pack up the other day. Probably used for less than 1,000 hours. I would have been better off with one of the ones that were banned.

Not a one-off either, I have had loads of expensive LED bulbs fail on me. Maybe the newer filament LED ones will be better but the problem with a lot of the heatsink ones seems to be that they still generate too much heat and end up roasting the power supply components.

LEDs are supposed to have improved in the past few years but the failure rate when they first came out was about 20% suppliers used to stand over them.

mr chips

Agree on the misinformation about electric cars - to argue that "coal/oil/gas etc have to be burned to produce electricity" is to ignore two key things. One, a lot (the majority?) of folk charge an electric car slowly overnight, when demand is low and the wind blows more strongly. So a greater proportion of the energy powering these cars comes from renewable sources. Two, there are much stricter emissions controls per given amount of fossil fuel burned in a power station than that burned in a car, so the actual amount of pollution per amount of energy consumed is still lower with an electric car than from the tailpipe of a conventional car.

All the same though, none of the electric cars really catch my interest apart from the Tesla range, and it'll be a fair while before I can afford a used one of them. But when the price and capacity of batteries is right, I'll happily rip the engine out of one of my nice comfortable cars and stick an electric motor and a battery in there. Means my biggest ongoing expense will be brakes & tyres. A 2 litre diesel engine weighs over 200kg, so the weight of the batteries won't be an issue. If they can make an old VW Beetle drive like a modern car, mine will be a limo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXsQGWWz3Is

freshpopcorn

Most people I know main incentive to recycle is because it's free or cheaper than sending rubbish to land fill.
I've never encountered somebody not wanting to buy something because of the packaging it's in.
In the last month or so there has being a good few campaigns about what you can and can't recycle lots of people thought once something was clean you could do it. The main response I heard was well just put it in the fire.
The only way things that will change is if there is something introduced that meant the majority of packaging should be recyclable when possible.

Rubberchikken

I dont waste. I dont buy takeout. I recycle. Try to walk whenever i can. In other words i try to do my bit.

Dravokivich

We fill the green bin within 5/6 days of it being emptied. It's collection period is on a 2 week cycle. Same with the brown bin. You want us to have an impact, fundamentally something about that needs to change. Charging for the black bin by weight isn't it. I used to only put that out every 5/6 weeks when it was full. It makes no odds to those who were smart about using it to keep their costs down. Those who paid for the tag with a half empty bin were penalising themselves as it was already.

Overall, while it's valid to be a consumer concern, I don't think it can ever be a consumer's problem. Looking at each footprint of us individually is like tracking an individual cow in the middle of a stampede. They aren't going to stop it.

Day Lewin

I bl00dy do care: and have been plugging at this one for at least thirty years. It is really frustrating, but it really matters.

Simple equation: carbon footprint represents our emissions from burning fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases accumulate: the earth gets warmer (this is happening). Climate change is the result and floods, hurricanes, drought...loss of usable habitat for humans...

This is the only planet we have; and it's not disposable.

farmerwifelet

mr chips wrote: »

Agree on the misinformation about electric cars - to argue that "coal/oil/gas etc have to be burned to produce electricity" is to ignore two key things. One, a lot (the majority?) of folk charge an electric car slowly overnight, when demand is low and the wind blows more strongly. So a greater proportion of the energy powering these cars comes from renewable sources. Two, there are much stricter emissions controls per given amount of fossil fuel burned in a power station than that burned in a car, so the actual amount of pollution per amount of energy consumed is still lower with an electric car than from the tailpipe of a conventional car.

All the same though, none of the electric cars really catch my interest apart from the Tesla range, and it'll be a fair while before I can afford a used one of them. But when the price and capacity of batteries is right, I'll happily rip the engine out of one of my nice comfortable cars and stick an electric motor and a battery in there. Means my biggest ongoing expense will be brakes & tyres. A 2 litre diesel engine weighs over 200kg, so the weight of the batteries won't be an issue. If they can make an old VW Beetle drive like a modern car, mine will be a limo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXsQGWWz3Is

In Ireland at night we switch to our peat burning stations - so not renewable source of energy yet.

Your Face

Tbh I can't even remember ever walking on carbon.

mr chips

I lived in Germany for a while about 25 years ago and they were way ahead of where we are now even back then. After you'd gone through the checkout in the local supermarket there was a big countertop running the whole width of the till area, where customers could lift out the shopping they'd just paid for and remove any excess packaging to put in the containers underneath the counter, in order for the shop would dispose of it on their behalf. Pretty much everyone did it - it was just what you did after paying for your shopping. I remember the first time I saw it happening, looking at a woman lifting the interior bag out of a box of Cornflakes and flattening the box before chucking it into the recycling, and thinking "jeez that's weird". How little I knew!!

The thing is, it has to be the responsibility of producers and retailers to cut down on packaging, not us as consumers. Why should I have to traipse to four or five different shops just to get stuff that won't end up in the sea, choking dolphins or turtles to death? It boils my pi55 to have to bin e.g. the plastic clingfilm wrapping used as a cover for a box of mushrooms, when some supermarkets won't sell loose mushrooms and provide a paper bag to put them in, i.e. one that's biodegradable/compostable. Even my local greengrocer - dotted round the shop are rolls of tear-off plastic bags for when you're buying loose stuff, but there are paper bags behind the till on a hook, out of reach! I asked him for a paper bag to put stuff in, and there was a plasticised panel all down the front of it just so you could see what was in there even though it was an open-top bag ...

adox

snow_bunny wrote: »

https://www.google.ie/search?q=plastic+in+the+ocean&client=safari&rls=en&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjyle2Vm7zZAhXsBcAKHUvQARgQ_AUICigB&biw=1296&bih=864#imgrc=Q16jqQOl8-cRtM:

Have a look at this and what plastic alone is doing to the planet. You don't have to believe in Global Warming or be a tree hugger to know that this is both disgusting and devastating. It isn't up for discussion or a matter of opinion, it's a fact that plastic waste is wrecking the planet in a multitude of ways.

People who can't be arsed recycling or feel that their efforts are pointless are just lazy IMO, if everyone tried to reduce, reuse and recycle it would go a long way towards preventing this getting even worse. There's absolutely no excuse for not doing your bit, lack of convenience doesn't count.

The issue isn’t really plastic per say but what we do, or 8mdeed don’t do with it.
Most plastic and the vast majority of plastic food packaging is fully recyclable. Indeed a lot of it now is made up by a large percentage of recycled plastic.

Banning plastic just isn’t a goer without an alternative and there isn’t really one at the moment when it comes to food packaging. Compostable alternatives don’t have the shelf life of their plastic counterparts or indeed their temperature tolerances and extremes.

Plastic could be a posssible sustainable product if countries were serious about recycling etc. As usual things are oversimplified and the narrative is “plastic is bad” which is an incredibly simplistic way of looking at it.

With regard to carbon footprints and reducing them, again this can be looked at in a simplistic and inaccurate way. Shop local, buy homegrown produce etc is a big mantra and one that has a lot of merit. However I remember watching a programme about tomato production and the huge import of tomatoes into the UK from the likes of North Africa and only a small percentage of those on supermarket shelves were grown in the UK.

It turned out that produc8mg tomatoes in the UK actually left a bigger carbon foot print than import8ng them from Africa.