Sprite.remove(); doesn't work -- it's left on the scene

Questions
1

I switched over to using Sprites, but now my .remove functions are left behind and pile up, killing CPU.

How do I remove this?!

image
image884×623 64.5 KB

2 
		scene.remove(plasmaBall);
						plasmaBall.material.dispose();
						//plasmaBall.material.map.dispose(); // nope
						// plasmaBall.geometry.dispose(); // nope
						disposeHierarchy(plasmaBall);
						
						plasmaBalls = plasmaBalls.slice(0,mining_index).concat(plasmaBalls.slice(mining_index+1));
						plasmaBall = null;

had to set it to NULL at the end, found an old example here: