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Exactly. People forget (or simply don't know) that orbital plane changes are incredibly expensive from an energy perspective. It's not like you're walking down the road picking up trash in a row, you have to adjust your orbit, canceling out movement in one direction while adding movement in another. And it takes an incredible amount of energy even for minor plane changes.

Exactly. It's like mining lead from the bullets flying through an active battlefield. There's material there, but it's moving in different directions.

I thought that the only effective way to clean this is ground-based focused energy. And even that has absolutely absurd energy requirements.

Everything else is in the realm of science fiction.

Especially since most of the debris is widely spread, and often as small as a pea.