from boltons.iterutils import is_scalar, remap

garbagey = {'attributes': 
            {'vars': 
             {'network': 
              {'addresses': []}}, 
             'characteristics': 
             {'chars': 'abc', 
              'misc_obj': {}, 
              'others': [1, 2]}
             } 
            }

def drop_empty(p, k, v):
    return is_scalar(v) or bool(v)

remap(garbagey, visit=drop_empty)
# {'attributes': {'characteristics': {'chars': 'abc', 'others': [1, 2]}}}