[2021] What is the point of Law system if u can just make arbitrary rules?

Those rules aren't necessarily arbitrary but allow servers to make specific concepts, with one of our official Servers, White-Tiger, making heavy use of it. This is possible and intended gameplay as well on the meta-level that Eco makes a lot of use of. The law system is not and never can be as extensive as rules can get for concepted servers, hence that method alone doesn't work for every type of server, especially such that have a concept with a specific government type presetup (which, as you can see on White-Tiger, quite a few people seem to like).

White-Tiger makes it a bit immersive by them being a civil code and penal code that will be enforced by government appointed player judges, but the sentiment of this not being intended gameplay is not true.

I don't doubt some admins take it too far or have no backing concept, but they are ultimately the owners of the server and the best way of players to show them that they do not accept that is not playing there - there is many well-administrated servers out there that would be happy to have you as a player :)

You can use slag to make roads now, but we do not have plans to make tailings magically recycleable. We might introduce ways to get ore out of them again with more modern technology, but storing tailings correctly will always be a part of the game. Waste management will become a much bigger part than it is now with all recipes generating some kind of waste in the future, for example.

Yes, you can :)

Recycling is a planned feature that goes along with garbage side-products on all crafts in the future.

That sounds a bit pessimistic, but there is enough admins that take their 'pretending of running a democracy' serious and deliver great gameplay. The same applies to admins that have other concepts than direct democracy on their servers. I'm happy with pretty much any admin that is able to make rules and keep to them strictly.