How should we deal with space junk? Space recycling, of course

(CNN) — Sometimes, what goes up doesn’t come back down — instead, it becomes a problem.

Junk is accumulating in space at a fantastic pace, millions of pieces orbit the Earth, from broken satellites to lost screws and tiny hunks of splintered paint. The International Space Station has to dodge it. Sometimes, space junk crashes into other space junk, creating more space junk. And while there have been many proposals for technologies to capture and destroy it, there’s not been a system-level plan for dealing with it in a comprehensive way.

This week, researchers at England’s University of Surrey published a paper outlining how to better deal with our celestial litter. The basic idea: make space more sustainable by using less material, repairing what’s already up there, and recycling