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 collecting the object for garbage collection when the separate count value for all of the remotes nodes is zero. The method also includes adding at least one per node sending counter responsive to a remote reference of the object being sent from a first remote node to a particular one of the remote nodes. The at least one per node sending counter is added at the first remote node to count a number of remote-references of the object being sent to the particular one of the remote nodes.