Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
Some day we may accumulate enough garbage up there that we'll need low earth orbit trash collectors.
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LEO has its own trash mitigation system built in; atmospheric drag. Orbiting objects including debris slow due to drag, and eventually fall towards Earth and burn up.
Higher orbits have less atmospheric drag and objects can linger for longer periods, but then there is increased "space" in those higher orbits since volume increases exponentially with radius.
This isn't to say that we can safely ignore the consequences of placing objects in space, only that the likelihood of problems due to garbage is relatively low. Of course, with the decreasing cost of sending stuff into orbit, this will be an increasing consideration.