CALIFORNIA NEWSWIRE (OAKLAND, Calif.) — David Duong, the charismatic entrepreneur whose family built California Waste Solutions after arriving in San Francisco as refugees, is the star of a new documentary, “The King of Trash,” that has drawn strong reviews and is now returning to California theaters. Tickets for Bay Area and San Jose showings sold out in August after heavy demand from movie-goers and the local community.
New screenings are scheduled in Hayward, Dublin, San Jose and Emeryville between Sept. 12 and Oct. 3. Nearly 1,000 people have registered or joined waiting lists across the four events, according to the production team.
“The King of Trash” is returning after an eight-city U.S. pre-screening tour that drew more than 5,000 attendees in San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, Orange County, Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Orlando. The events brought together business leaders, community organizations, California Waste Solutions employees, families and members of the Vietnamese American community.
The Sept. 26 program at AMC Eastridge in San Jose will serve as the final VIP pre-screening, where audiences will have an opportunity to meet Duong, members of the cast and director Errol Webber. The film has also been selected for the 2026 San Francisco International New Concept Film Festival and The Red Rock Film Festival.
For some viewers, the documentary offers a window into a refugee experience they may know little about. For others, particularly immigrant and refugee families, the story reflects experiences closer to their own: parents beginning again in an unfamiliar country, children growing up between generations, and businesses built not simply as enterprises but as sources of stability for entire families.
The Duongs arrived with little material wealth but with knowledge accumulated over generations in the recovered-paper trade. In San Francisco, discarded cardboard became one of the first resources they could turn into income. Those beginnings eventually led to California Waste Solutions, creating jobs and establishing a recycling operation that today serves communities across Oakland and San Jose.
“The King of Trash” offers viewers a rare glimpse into the mind of one of America’s leading green entrepreneurs.
In the movie, Duong cuts a pragmatic and benevolent figure, building a company that began with a handful of family members into an operation employing thousands of blue-collar workers in California and contributing environmental benefits to his local community.
San Francisco has long been the subject of criticism for its homeless and waste problems. Duong was one of the few entrepreneurs who tackled the task head on along with his siblings, parents and wider family. At the time of the company’s founding, Michael Duong was only around 10 years old, while sons Danny Duong and Andy Duong hadn’t yet been born. Victor Duong tagged along in toe.
The movie opens with the Duong family in 1960s and 1970s Vietnam, when their property and recycling plants were lost after the fall of Saigon. Twenty-three relatives boarded a small boat and fled by sea. Survival itself was not guaranteed.
“We almost died out there in the ocean. We had only one choice: survive,” Duong recalls in the film.
The family reached a refugee camp in the Philippines and spent about a year there before they were admitted to the United States. San Francisco became their new home. Sixteen relatives crowded into two small studio apartments in the Tenderloin.
“We flew to San Francisco. My parents tried to go to a non-profit organization to ask for help to rent a place. I remember at the time that we went to Goodwill and my parents brought some of the bunkbeds, and then we put them together in two apartment studios for 16 of us that were living there,” Duong says in the movie.
Finding themselves with little work or outside support, the Duongs collected cardboard, office paper, aluminum cans and other recyclable materials from San Francisco streets and businesses. They sorted what still had value, sold the recovered material and used the income to help support the household. By the end of the 1980s, the family had acquired seven trucks and the business began to thrive, earning them a contract from the city of Oakland.
Ironically, given the family’s former bitter experiences with Vietnam, they later invested in and founded Ho Chi Minh City’s largest waste-disposal business. Vietnam Waste Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of California Waste Solutions launched in 2005, handles more than 6,000 tons of waste per day. The movie depicts that construction in detail, showing how they built the city’s largest American-standard waste-disposal facility and began tackling Vietnam’s environmental challenges from the ground up.
“We came here to America with bare hands and we started collecting trash on the street. We’d open all the garbage bags and go through them and pick out all the recycled materials, sell, and build ourselves up. With $700 to start with, now we have a few billion-dollar contracts between here, the Bay Area and Vietnam. This is the country with opportunity, but you have to work hard for it,” Duong tells a forum of young San Jose entrepreneurs in the movie.
VIDEO TRAILER (YOUTUBE):
Upcoming screenings include:
Dublin: Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, Regal Hacienda Crossings, 5 to 7 p.m.
San Jose: Final VIP pre-screening, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, AMC Eastridge, 4 to 8 p.m. Audiences will have an opportunity to meet David Duong, members of the cast and director Errol Webber.
Emeryville: Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, AMC Bay Street Emeryville, 5 to 8 p.m.
The Bay Area is where the Duong family rebuilt its life after arriving in America, and San Jose is home to one of the country’s largest Vietnamese American communities. For many of those families, the history portrayed in “The King of Trash” is not distant history. It belongs to people they know.
“The King of Trash” is a 72-minute documentary that uses the experience of Vietnamese American entrepreneur David Duong and the Duong family to tell a broader story about refugee displacement, immigration, family, work and rebuilding a life in America. Beginning with the fall of Saigon, the film follows the family’s escape from Vietnam by sea, about a year in a refugee camp in the Philippines and their resettlement in San Francisco. It then traces the decades of work that followed, including the family history behind California Waste Solutions and Vietnam Waste Solutions.
For screening information, the official trailer and film updates, visit https://www.thekingoftrash.us/.
* * *
This version of news first appeared on CaliforniaNewswire.com © 2026 – all rights reserved.
