It is using the vanilla empty space tile, so it feels like a weird implementation thing that you can't natively do this

this feels like a good idea. I'm not sure exactly how to do this at the moment, but I'll look into it

It should be as easy as making a duplicate of the empty_space tile that has destroys_dropped_items set, then converting all the vanilla empty_space tiles on those two planets to your new tile
I'd pop into the Foundry discord and ask thesixthroc for advice since they did that w/ Cerys

My current solution is recyclers, i also use them to turn nanites into basic materials

And hydro plants from maraxsis to void the lube

Deciding to quality cycle microculture vats resulted in a huge water demand, and now I'm finding myself wanting to void over 4 stacked green belts each of iron and copper ore. The poor recyclers can't keep up.