Description should include the following:
- Whenever there is a need for memory and an object is no longer referenced, garbage collection is performed automatically by the Java Virtual Machine.
- It may be desirable to run the garbage collection explicitly by calling the gc method in the System class.
- Before an object is garbage-collected, the garbage collector gives the object an opportunity to clean up after itself through a call to the object's finalize method, a process known as finalization.