American+Commercial+Satellite+crashes+with+Russian+Military+Satellite

 * Of the 18,000 tracked objects travelling around the Earth that are larger than 10cm (4 inches), only about 900 are active satellites. The rest is debris— *The collision of an American commercial satellite and a defunct Russian military one has just added thousands more pieces of debris. *The one Russian and one U.S. satellite collided at 10 km per second  *The satellites collided some 800 kilometers (500 miles) above Siberia, the Russian and U.S. space agencies confirm. *The Russian satellite was launched in 1993 and had been out of service at the time of the collision. *The world is becoming increasingly dependent on these satellites for communications, broadcasting and surveillance.  
 * denotes opinion
 * American Commercial Satellite crashes with Russian Military Satellite **
 * Maybe there should be a way to retract satellites that are no longer in use

Space waste is not biodegradable. You cannot sweep it up. Instead, it will stay in orbit for decades, or even centuries, before it eventually falls to earth and burns up.   > 
 * The economist proposes that an international civil satellite-awareness system is needed. This would provide everyone from small governments to business with the information they need to operate safely. This will cut down on the amount of satellites and the potential amount of debris to decrease significantly. (Like a universal system for all outer space matters.)
 * Space debris likely has much larger national security involvement than most forms of pollution since it has such a direct effect on our communications systems.