> All I know is that there are 47,000 asteroids out there without us having
> done very much polluting as yet.

How  many ships do you envision in a commercially active high-population system?

500?

1000?

2000?

5000?

If we're already tracking 47k asteroids, another 5000 IR beacons with
lights and transponders does not seem particularly challenging.

And ships ARE IR beacons, by default. They will be significantly
warmer than the backgrounds of space, unless lots of special effort is
taken.


> So what happens after a system has been exposed to 3,000 years of
> spacefaring civilization?

After 3000 years, presumably, this is all pretty well worked out science.


> Salvage sounds good, but realistically in space salvage is quite expensive,
> not like on surface where ships just get towed to India and hakced appart by
> illiterate workers.


You're conflating two different things.

Spotting and plotting a derelict is one task.

Intercepting it and towing it somewhere for refit is another.

Spotting and plotting is relatively simple.

Whether anybody has the resources and interest to go out, chase it
down, stop it, and bring it back is a different question.



> I wonder if anyone has tried to produce a formula for calculating amount of
> artificial objects in system based on length of habbitation, size of
> populations, number of habbitats, TLs, etc.

Eh.  You seem to be changing (sort of) the dimensions of the question.
The original issue was keeping track of *ships*, and the primary
concern was ships jumping in-system.  Not so much keeping track of
every nut, bolt, and teddy bear* that ends up in space, lost or
discarded.