According to an article in The Week, there are 360,000 pieces of space junk (rocket debris, missle shards, old satellite hardware, etc.) orbiting Earth and threatening to destroy our current satellite systems. But Japan has a plan to use a metallic fish net to collect the floating flotsam. An excerpt:

“The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has a solution. It has teamed up with Nitto Seimo, a fishing net manufacturer, to design a giant, metallic net to be launched into space. The net would rotate around the planet, and collect the orbital trash. Once the net is full, gravity would pull it toward Earth — and it would burn up as it re-entered the atmosphere. Japan wants to launch the net within the next two years.”