ESA's Clean Space initiative is looking at developing a satellite that can rendezvous with space debris and render it harmless by netting it like fish. According to ESA, there are 17,000 trackable objects larger than a coffee cup orbiting the Earth and many more down to the size of paint chips. This may not seem like anything very dangerous, but at orbital velocity, even a paint chip can hit like a bullet and a steel nut has the impact of a hand grenade.
The oceans are crammed with floating junk, including thousands of pieces of plastic per square mile of water, the U.N. says. In a bid to raise awareness of the problem, Adidas has developed a prototype sneaker made mostly from recycled floating plastic.
Developing coutnries are trying to defeat a policy that would require knowledge and consent to hazardous waste material being shipped into that country