I just tried the following: let mut blah = ~MyStruct{x: 3, y: 4}; for i in range(0,100000000) { blah = ~MyStruct{x: i + blah.x, y:

I just tried the following: let mut blah = ~MyStruct{x: 3, y: 4}; for i in range(0,100000000) { blah = ~MyStruct{x: i + blah.x, y: i + blah.y}; } println!("{} {}", blah.x, blah.y); The memory usage didn't increase over time - the owned pointer frees when it gets reassigned.