The King of Trash Returns to San Jose for a Final Evening With David Duong and the Cast
Following a screening tour that has welcomed nearly 5,000 guests, The King of Trash will return to San Jose on September 26 for a Final VIP Pre-Screening at AMC Eastridge, bringing audiences together with David Duong, the Duong family and members of the cast for a special closing evening.
The return of The King of Trash to San Jose came directly from the response to the film. As the documentary traveled through eight cities, audiences from San Jose and communities throughout the Bay Area continued asking for another opportunity to experience it on the big screen. Some had missed earlier events, while others had already seen the film and wanted to bring their parents, children, friends or colleagues. That sustained interest led to the decision to add one final VIP evening before the private screening series comes to a close.
On Saturday, September 26, 2026, the documentary will return to AMC Eastridge for an event that goes beyond a traditional screening. Guests will have an opportunity to see the film in a theater and meet David Duong, members of the Duong family and members of the cast whose lives and experiences helped shape the story. The evening will also bring together business leaders, community members, employees, longtime supporters and families from across the Bay Area.
For those who know California Waste Solutions primarily as a recycling company, the documentary offers a very different point of entry. It begins decades before CWS existed and before David Duong became a business leader in California. It begins with a family whose knowledge of paper, recovered materials and recycling had already been developed on the other side of the world.
The history behind the name
David's father, Jim Tai Thu Duong, built a substantial paper manufacturing and recycling business in Vietnam. He understood materials not simply as waste, but as commodities with different grades, qualities, uses and markets. Paper had to be identified correctly, processed efficiently, transported economically and connected to buyers who could use it again. His ability to recognize value in discarded material became so closely associated with his work that people in the trade came to know him by a nickname that would decades later become the title of the documentary about his family: the King of Trash.
That knowledge became especially important after the fall of South Vietnam, when the security and business the family had known were disrupted. The Duongs eventually came to the United States as refugees, facing the difficult task of beginning again without the factories, machinery and financial foundation that had once surrounded them.
What they still possessed was experience.
In San Francisco, the family returned to the industry they understood, but at its most basic level. They collected cardboard, paper and other recyclable materials, sorted what could be sold and found markets for it. The circumstances were dramatically different, yet the economics were familiar. Material that one person considered finished still had value if someone knew what it was, how to recover it and where it could go next.
The contrast is central to the film. A family that had once known the paper business in Vietnam was now collecting discarded paper from American streets. What could have represented only a fall in circumstances instead became the place from which they began rebuilding.
Alongside Jim's knowledge of the industry was the equally important work of David's mother, Anh Thi Le, who helped preserve the family through displacement, uncertainty and the demanding years of starting over. Keeping children together, maintaining discipline and carrying family values from one country into another created the stability from which the next chapter could be built. The King of Trash is ultimately the story of both kinds of work: the work that built a business and the work that kept a family strong enough to build one.
From CoGiDo to California Waste Solutions
In 1983, the family established CoGiDo Paper Corporation in Oakland. What began with collecting and selling recovered material developed into a more organized recycling business involving transportation, sorting, processing and commodity markets.
David also used the business to create opportunities for other immigrants trying to establish themselves. He helped collectors gain access to vehicles and provided a market for the recyclable materials they brought in. It was a practical approach to entrepreneurship. Someone could be willing to work every day and still remain limited without transportation; a truck could expand a route, but a truck alone meant little without a dependable buyer. By helping solve both problems, David gave other aspiring operators a more realistic path into the business.
Those years also gave him a detailed understanding of how recycling actually works. The industry depended on far more than collecting material. It required reliable equipment, disciplined routes, employees, maintenance, transportation, quality control, customer relationships and an understanding of commodity markets that could change quickly.
In 1992, David founded California Waste Solutions.
Over the following decades, CWS grew into an established recycling operation with deep roots in Oakland and San Jose. To most residents, much of that work appears simple because good municipal service is designed to feel routine. A recycling cart is placed at the curb. A truck arrives. The material disappears from view.
Behind that moment is a complex operation involving drivers, mechanics, dispatchers, sorters, equipment operators, supervisors, customer service teams and employees responsible for keeping thousands of individual movements coordinated. Material must be collected, separated, processed and ultimately returned to productive markets.
The scale is far removed from the family's early years in San Francisco, but the central principle remains the same: value does not recover itself. People have to recognize it, organize it and create the system that allows it to be used again.
That connection between the family's beginnings and the modern operation of California Waste Solutions is one of the strongest elements of The King of Trash. The company did not emerge after the Duongs left difficult recycling work behind. It emerged because they understood that work deeply enough to build something larger around it.
Why audiences have connected with the story
Directed by award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer Errol Webber, The King of Trash places the growth of California Waste Solutions inside a much larger family history. It is a business story, but it is also a story about immigration, family responsibility and the distance between what one generation endures and where the next generation is allowed to begin.
That broader perspective has helped the documentary connect with a wide range of audiences during its screening run. Entrepreneurs have recognized the uncertainty of building something with limited resources. Immigrant families have recognized the experience of arriving in a country where previous accomplishments may not immediately translate into opportunity. Parents have recognized the choices they make so their children can begin from a stronger position than they did.
Younger viewers often see the story differently. Michael, Johnny and Andy Duong belong to later chapters of the family's history, growing up with access to opportunities and institutions that the generation arriving in America did not initially possess. That difference is not separate from the family's story. It is the result the earlier generation worked to create.
The purpose of sacrifice is not for children to reproduce the hardship of their parents. It is to give them a better starting point. The responsibility of the next generation is therefore different: to understand what made that opportunity possible and decide what should be carried forward.
This is why many screenings have continued after the film itself ended. Guests have remained to speak with David and his family. Parents have introduced their children. Business owners have shared stories about the difficult early years of their own companies. Members of immigrant families have recognized parts of their own histories in the Duongs' experience.
Nearly 5,000 guests have now taken part in that conversation.
San Jose is a particularly meaningful place to bring the screening series to a close. California Waste Solutions has built a long operating history in the city, making the South Bay an important part of the company's development. At the same time, San Jose is home to one of the country's most significant Vietnamese-American communities, shaped by generations of refugees, entrepreneurs, professionals, families and community leaders who have become part of the economic and civic fabric of Silicon Valley.
The Duong family's experience is uniquely their own, but many of its larger themes are familiar throughout the region: leaving one country without knowing what comes next, starting again with limited resources, building a business slowly, holding a family together through uncertainty and eventually watching the next generation grow up with opportunities that once seemed distant.
For audiences in San Jose, the film therefore connects two histories that are often seen separately. There is the public story of California Waste Solutions, a company operating within the region's recycling infrastructure, and there is the private family history that existed long before the company had trucks, facilities or municipal relationships.
The final VIP pre-screening brings those stories together.
Guests attending the September 26 event will have the opportunity to experience The King of Trash on the big screen and meet David Duong, members of the Duong family and members of the cast. It is intended as a closing celebration of the film's screening journey, but also as an opportunity for audiences to meet the people behind a story that began long before California Waste Solutions became the company it is today.
The King of Trash Final VIP Pre-Screening will take place Saturday, September 26, 2026, from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM at AMC Eastridge, 2190 Eastridge Loop, San Jose, CA 95122.
Seating is limited, and advance RSVP is required.
Reserve your seat:
After a journey that has brought the film to thousands of people, San Jose will host one final evening with David Duong, the Duong family and the cast behind The King of Trash, bringing the story back to a community that has become an important part of what the family built in America.
Comments