Queue not releasing memory

[nathan at islanddata.com]

After filling a Queue class instance with large amounts of data, the
memory footprint of python grows dramatically.  I would expect, then,
that this footprint would decrease in size when the queue is emptied,
but it does not.  The memory use drops instantly when the empty queue
is delete, however.  I've examined the Queue.py code and cannot see
where this data may be cached, etc.  Executing:

sys.getrefcount(q.queue[0])

for example, yields 2: the temporary reference and a single one for
the queue entry.  It stands to reason that after get'ing an item from
the queue that it should be lost forever.  Test program:

q = Queue.Queue(20000)
for x in string.uppercase:
 for y in string.uppercase:
  for z in string.uppercase:
   m = (x + y + z) * 1024
   q.put(m)

for x in string.uppercase:
 for y in string.uppercase:
  for z in string.uppercase:
   q.get()

The memory taken up by this program does not decrease until q is
deleted.  Can anyone tell me why this happens and how I can fix it
*without* deleting the queue and creating a new one?  Thanks...