[larkeith]

Note that because the Earth is tilted, this region of space is pretty much useless - there's very few (if any) useful orbits beyond a geostationary, and any spacecraft heading into interplanetary space is going to be aligned with the plane of the solar system (ecliptic), and won't pass through GEO or graveyard orbits. So while you do get shrapnel, it's spread across a very large region through which nobody travels.

[nucleardog]

This graphic on Wikipedia is probably really helpful to visualize some of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#/media/File:D...

While there's a lot of space junk up there, you can see that the graveyard orbit is in fact a fairly tight line around the equator. It should be quite easy to avoid.

From the look of it, it's kinda functionally equivalent to putting a fence around an airport. I mean, sure, it theoretically limits your options, but not in any practical way.