At 5 a.m. each morning, Alfonso Barbedio Puma of Norwood is out to clean some Bronx streets. To do his part.

He doesn’t employ the usual broom-and-dustpan method, but uses his hands instead. Every day for the last three years, Puma picks up bottles and cans, or “latas,” an off-the-books living that he and others from Latin America have taken on throughout the borough. It’s the only job available, said Puma, not because of his status—Puma entered the U.S. from his native Ecuador legally—but his age.

At 76, Puma feels the effects of ageism with no one looking to hire him. Back in Ecuador, getting a job was easy, he said. In Ecuador, Puma was a construction boss, building homes. In America, he’s all but given up on finding a job.

On Oct. 17, Puma, a quiet, unassuming man, wearing sandals and a New York Yankees cap, looks upon his work as a mutual benefit to a neighborhood where trash concerns are always an issue. He’s doing his part alright; collecting trash that functions as his treasure.

Among his many stops in Norwood is Mosholu Parkway. There, hauling a cart, Puma hits the leafy dale, scrounging for cans or bottles left behind by irresponsible litterers. His weather-beaten hands, rough and sticky, with clear plastic bags (recommended for recycling), Puma fills the bags to capacity, tying them carefully. He’s not hoarding them, but amassing a haul for another collector.

On that balmy mid-October day, Puma carefully placed a total of eight huge bags full of cans and soda bottles, carefully divided, at the valley of one of the parkway’s many hills. Soon, Puma grabbed those bags, two at a time, and hiked up to the corner of Mosholu Parkway North and Van Cortlandt Avenue. It was just after 1 p.m., and his Manhattan connection would arrive any minute. That contact, a representative with a waste management company, “buys” the empty plastic bottles at a bulk rate, alleviating Puma from shuffling to a local supermarket to redeem the goods.

After eight hours, Puma walks away with somewhere between $50 to $80. “We all have to do our part,” he said, his thick accent making it tough to decipher what he’s saying.

Once the contact is off with packed bundles of cans and plastics, Puma does it again, hoping the next day’s collection would make sense.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.