"The King of Trash," a documentary following David Duong and the family behind California Waste Solutions, has drawn sold-out screenings and strong reviews since completing an eight-city U.S. pre-screening tour that attracted more than 5,000 attendees in cities including San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, Washington D.C., Dallas, Houston, Orange County, and Orlando.
New California screenings are scheduled in Hayward, Dublin, San Jose, and Emeryville between September 12 and October 3, 2026. According to the production team, nearly 1,000 people have registered or joined waiting lists across the four events. The September 26 program at AMC Eastridge in San Jose will serve as the final VIP pre-screening, giving audiences an opportunity to meet Duong, cast members, 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.
The documentary traces the Duong family's origins in 1960s and 1970s Vietnam, where they operated recycling plants before losing their property after the fall of Saigon. Multiple relatives fled by sea on a small boat, spent approximately a year in a refugee camp in the Philippines, and were eventually admitted to the United States. Several relatives initially shared two small studio apartments in San Francisco's Tenderloin district.
Drawing on knowledge accumulated over generations in the recovered-paper trade, the family collected cardboard, office paper, and aluminum cans from San Francisco streets and businesses. By the end of the 1980s, they had acquired seven trucks and secured a contract with the city of Oakland. The family later established CoGiDo Paper Corporation in Oakland, followed by California Waste Solutions, which today serves communities across Oakland and San Jose.
"We started a business with one pick-up truck, getting a contract with Oakland and expanding that to a contract in San Jose and then getting a massive 50-year contract in Vietnam for waste handling for 7,500 tons per day," Duong tells the filmmakers. "Next I want to take this company bigger so we can grow more and be helping more in society."
The film also recounts the family's earliest days in San Francisco. "We went to San Francisco downtown where there's these beautiful buildings. My parents went through one of the buildings where there is this white office paper and they take out aluminum cans. They said, 'this is gold,'" Duong recalls.
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