It seems to me when "Space Garbage" is discarded to orbit, it's not all that different from the "Middle Ages" when people threw out the contents of their chamber pots into the streets. Every act of blindly tossing unwanted things into an environment, has consequences not recognized, when an object or hazard enters environmental system.
Everything sent into space, should include a simple method of disposing waste products like this "pallet" of used batteries from the "Space Station." One of the most obvious methods of getting rid of space garbage which is being overlooked, is our Solar System's built-in incinerator.
If we can send a Rover to Mars successfully, it should be easy to build a system to insert space junk out of orbit and into a trajectory into the Sun. Here on Earth we use incinerators to dispose of certain types of trash. Many of the discarded waste is hazardous such as medical waste, closed system incinerating toilets in remote cabins and other specific types of man-made materials which out live their usefulness. Vehicles, tires, paper, cardboard, metals and a host of other items are routinely repurposed, or eliminated by using fire as a method of disposing things which would bury us otherwise.
"Space Junk" is becoming a real concern faced by manned crews orbiting the planet. It may seem as though the "empty vacuum" of space is infinite, but all of the great tools used in our scientific missions have an end life, which needs to be addressed when its time comes to an end. If we continue the dumping, we will eventually experience a collision between a piece of aborted debris with a manned space object.
It isn't as though is "IF" it might happen, it is a matter of when it will happen. Good safety planning is part of dealing with the hazards produced by Science as the results of the Science itself. Mitigating such hazards has to be built into the materials used and launched into orbit.