Mr. Smythe' was the manager of the Wastaway Plant. He preferred to dump toxic waste in the city sewers instead of processing it. The caused a destructive reaction to occur in every ghost that smelled it's fumes and most of them sought out the Wastaway Plant to attack it. Smythe called in the Ghostbusters not once, but twice. Although the Ghostbusters managed to clear the plant of ghosts using their Ghost Busting Missile, they were unable to save the plant from being destoryed as well.