No, for Mendix developers this is not possible. But, if you are right, then it is also not your problem to solve since garbage collection is the task of the MBS, Mendix Business Server, which is maintained by Mendix. Best thing to do therefore is creating an application in which you can reproduce this behaviour (or copy your current project, strip it from things not related to this problem) and create a support ticket.
Hi Luke,
I had seen a similar behaviour in one of the apps, and I verified it, although it was in a different version of Mendix. I don't recall if it was just browser back or closing the page and I'm not sure if you're closing the page or not though.
It seems that Mendix garbage collection also runs when you close pages (too many times). See their official documentation:
https://docs.mendix.com/refguide/transient-objects-garbage-collecting