diff --git a/tess-two/src/com/googlecode/tesseract/android/TessBaseAPI.java b/tess-two/src/com/googlecode/tesseract/android/TessBaseAPI.java
index e83178e49..799dcb412 100644
--- a/tess-two/src/com/googlecode/tesseract/android/TessBaseAPI.java
+++ b/tess-two/src/com/googlecode/tesseract/android/TessBaseAPI.java
@@ -514,6 +514,8 @@ public void setImage(Bitmap bmp) {
         }
 
         nativeSetImagePix(image.getNativePix());
+        
+        image.recycle();
     }
 
     /**