When you pass  a object  (whatever its type is) to a method, the thing
that happens is that it is created another reference (or pointer,
dont really know) to that object. In your case, if you pass a
Connection object to a method, you are passing  not the object itself
but its reference. So it's not creating a new object nor a new
database connection. Feel free to use it :P . The Garbage Collector
will only "delete" that object if it is no longer referenced in any
point of your program. If you create  a connection  in a method  (M1)
and use it in another method (M2) it will only collect it when both
M1 and M2 are finished or are no longer referencing that object!