In fact, eating fish does far more harm to our oceans than sipping your drink through a straw ever will.

Abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear — otherwise known as 'ghost gear' — is a  problem that spells catastrophe for marine life.

At least 640,000 tonnes of ghost gear are added to our oceans every year, killing and mutilating millions of marine animals— including endangered whales, seals and turtles. Swallowing plastic remnants from ghost gear leads to malnutrition, digestive blockages and death.

In the Pacific Ocean, there is a floating patch of garbage twice the size of France and weighing roughly 88,000 tons. While this enormous area, like our oceans at large, is full of plastic, scientists estimate that 46 percent of the mass of the garbage patch comes from fishing nets alone. And other types of fishing gear account for much of the rest.

So, while many people are stocking up on cloth shopping bags and signing petitions to ban single-use plastic straws to save the oceans, those who fish (or eat fish) need to re-examine their personal choices too. It's simple: Less fishing means less fishing gear—abandoned or otherwise.

Clearly, fishing is hazardous to the environment. But it’s also horrifically cruel. Commercial fishing kills hundreds of billions of animals worldwide every year far more than any other industry.  You can't eat fish and call yourself an environmentalist.

Desmond Bellamy, Special Projects Coordinator, PETA Australia

In reply to the letter by John Martin, "A Giant Tax Con" (Illawarra Mercury, Tuesday July 24, 2018),  trickle down economics is not a myth as the socialist-lefties like to put it. 

Trickle down has been a characterisation and rejection of what somebody else supposedly believed. However, no recognised economist of any school of thought has ever had any such theory or made any such proposal. It is a straw man.

Economic processes work "completely" the opposite way from that depicted by those who imagine that profits first benefit business owners and that benefits only belatedly trickle down to workers.

As almost any entrepreneur (big or small business) can tell you, when a business investment is made it is the workers who get paid first. Profits and capital gains only come later.

For instance, when a new restaurant opens up, construction workers and interior designers get paid for building or renovating the space. Companies make money providing the furnishings and kitchen equipment while waiters, cooks and cleaning crew receive their wages. 

Furthermore, the food and beverage suppliers likewise get paid and only later, if the restaurant is successful do the owners see a return on their investment. I hope you can understand and appreciate this, Mr Martin.

Adrian Devlin, Fairy Meadow

​EDITOR’S NOTE: Reader images of our region you are used to seeing here now run with the letters to the editor online  at illawarramercury.com.au.