$rootScope.Scope.$destroy()

Removes the current scope (and all of its children) from the parent scope. Removal implies that calls to $digest() will no longer propagate to the current scope and its children. Removal also implies that the current scope is eligible for garbage collection.

The $destroy() is usually used by directives such as ngRepeat for managing the unrolling of the loop.

Just before a scope is destroyed, a $destroy event is broadcasted on this scope. Application code can register a $destroy event handler that will give it a chance to perform any necessary cleanup.

Note that, in AngularJS, there is also a $destroy jQuery event, which can be used to clean up DOM bindings before an element is removed from the DOM.