In a distributed processing system having multiple processing nodes including alive nodes and dead nodes, a method is provided for collecting an object from the alive nodes. The method includes maintaining a separate count value for each of remote nodes at which the object is remotely-referenced. The method further includes suppressing a collection of the object when the separate count value for any of the remote nodes is non-zero. The method also includes clearing the separate count value for a given one of the remote nodes when the given one of the remote nodes is dead.