1. A machine-implemented method, comprising: initiating a garbage collection cycle on a set of objects that have been dynamically allocated in a memory; identifying new persistent objects and reachable non-persistent objects while ignoring old persistent objects that have been identified as persistent in previous garbage collection cycles; associating said new persistent objects as members of a set of persistent objects that includes said old persistent objects, and preserving persistence information for said set of persistent objects for use during subsequent garbage collection cycles; and marking all reachable non-persistent objects and all persistent objects in said set of persistent objects for memory reclamation phase processing, said persistent objects being so marked using said preserved persistence information.