React Memory Leaks: Closures and Object Graphs

Memory leaks in JavaScript don't announce themselves with an error. They show up as a heap that grows by 20MB per minute — invisible in a five-minute Lighthouse run, fatal in a six-hour production session. Why React apps leak: A useEffect that opens a WebSocket and never closes it on unmount. A setInterval without clearInterval in the cleanup return. A global Map that grows without bound. In each case, something still holds a reference to objects that are no longer logically needed, and the GC c