The Space race has managed a significant achievement. In 50 years, humanity has sent tons of waste from Earth to space. "The ocean above" as Victor Hugo called it is a victim of industrial pollution of a new genre, striking, proliferating and long lasting it is of the same nature as the pollution of our worldly ocean riddled with plastic polystyrene and hydrocarbon waste however space waste is much harder to recuperate.

The life of a satellite is not much longer than that of a car, about twelve years. On earth, managing out-of-use cars and their accessories is a real headache. In space, managing Out of Use Satellites is a case of "each state for itself" and involves a certain amount of inconsideration.

Waste management in all its forms is a science as well as a mirror of collective behavior. Space waste is no exception to the rule however no-one, especially operators, saw it coming. In the 1970s, traces of titanium and alumina were detected for the first time on Guinea pig satellites.

This was blamed on solar flares or the chemical composition of asteroids but was actually from paint and combustion residues on the spacecraft. Space experts did not anticipate geometric expansion or the multiplication of waste from orbital collisions and explosions. In 50 years, human activities in space has created more waste in the Earth's low and high orbits than meteorites injected by the solar system in billions of years.

Today, no manned space flight and satellite or interplanetary mission is safe from collision with destructive waste. On Earth, no one is immune to waste falling from the sky above or uncontrolled re-entry on the Blue Planet, not even a whale.

Space waste contributes to light pollution in space and disturbs astronomers' observations. Nuclear reactors on board the satellite mask the natural radioactive background noise in the cosmos, emitting gamma-rays even when the satellites are no longer in use.

All this for internet, GPS, satellite telephone and radio as well as many business activities, media and entertainment that make a lot of money and produce tons of waste without having to pay a space TGAP - General Tax on Polluting Activities. In the near future polluters should pay, in order to manage and recover space waste.

Space law is also broken. The steps that may put an international agreement on prevention and space waste management in orbit are far from the launch pad. The only glimmer of hope: space logistics managers now understand the urgent need to act to clean this spatial dump and prevent waste at the source.

This report is the first inventory of space waste to be published by an environmental NGO on space waste, the associated risks for space activities, for Earth and the interplanetary environment.