California Waste Solutions Marks 35 Years of Environmental Innovation

OAKLAND, Calif., Sep 18, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- California Waste Solutions Inc. is approaching its 35th year as a leader in the international recycling, resource recovery, and environmental infrastructure business. The company, headquartered in Oakland, California, serves more than 343,000 customers across Oakland and San Jose, operating six Bay Area recycling facilities. Through its wholly owned subsidiary Vietnam Waste Solutions (VWS), it manages large-scale waste infrastructure in Ho Chi Minh City.

David Duong, the founder and CEO of California Waste Solutions, established the company in Oakland in 1992 with eight used collection trucks and a family willing to work. The company received its first City of Oakland franchise in 1993 and has served Oakland continuously since. California Waste Solutions later expanded into San Jose, building a broader network of services that include collection, processing, material recovery, customer service, and the marketing of recovered commodities.

The scale of the business today is closely tied to Duong's own history. After arriving in the United States as a Vietnamese refugee, Duong and his family rebuilt their lives through the recycling business they already knew well, beginning again in California with recovered paper, cardboard, and other recyclable materials. The Duong family's path from refugee resettlement to building environmental businesses across the United States and Vietnam is documented in "The King of Trash," a film about Duong, the Duong family, and the experiences that shaped their work across both countries.

In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, California Waste Solutions operates the Da Phuoc Integrated Solid Waste Facility (DPI), a 341-acre facility that receives more than 6,500 tons of waste per day and handles approximately 2.4 million tons annually. This facility is Southeast Asia's first and only integrated solid waste facility and Vietnam's largest landfill operation. A World Bank environmental assessment has described the Da Phuoc complex as Vietnam's largest solid waste processing complex.

The facility combines recycling and material recovery, sanitary landfill management, composting, industrial leachate and wastewater treatment, treated-water reuse, landfill-gas collection, and electricity generation within one operating complex. The Da Phuoc landfill dates back more than two decades. As relations between Vietnam and the United States normalized in the 1990s, Ho Chi Minh City began looking for more advanced approaches to municipal waste treatment. California Waste Solutions agreed to develop the project under a structure that gave the company ownership of the facility and required it to be built to U.S. environmental standards.

Building Da Phuoc to U.S.-standard environmental requirements meant investing in engineered liner systems, dedicated leachate and wastewater treatment, landfill-gas collection, and other controls that went well beyond the cost of a conventional disposal site. For Duong, that additional investment was essential to creating a facility designed to serve Ho Chi Minh City reliably for decades. Da Phuoc became one of the first major catalysts for Vietnam's new energy-efficiency in an economy that is growing at nearly 8% a year.

Today, only one American employee remains on the ground, while the operation is run overwhelmingly by Vietnamese engineers, employees, and technical personnel. Da Phuoc remains the only landfill in Vietnam developed to U.S. Subtitle D standards, according to company records, and its landfill-gas recovery and environmental systems support Vietnam's broader efforts to improve waste management and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions on the path toward net zero by 2050.

California Waste Solutions operates internationally through Vietnam Waste Solutions, expanding the business David Duong had built in Northern California. The collection routes and material recovery facilities in Oakland and San Jose operate in a different environment from Da Phuoc, but both businesses depend on the same operating fundamentals: reliable infrastructure, material recovery, environmental controls, and systems capable of performing every day at city scale. Through Vietnam Waste Solutions, that experience expanded into sanitary landfill engineering, recycling, composting, leachate and wastewater treatment, landfill-gas recovery, and energy generation.

In December 2024, David Duong committed $500,000 to support recycling education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Duong family also sent 1,200 oxygen concentrators to hospitals in need. The company continues to reinvest in safety, systems, and operational performance, evaluating technologies such as infrared cameras, smoke and heat detection systems, and electric and lower-emission collection vehicles. Inside its recycling facilities, California Waste Solutions continues to modernize sorting and processing systems while giving employees better information about material flow and equipment performance.

The company's next generation now holds leadership responsibilities across the business. Michael Duong serves as President, Johnny Duong as Chief Operating Officer, Kristina Duong as Chief Financial Officer, and Victor Duong as Executive Vice President of Public Affairs. Their roles span operations, finance, public affairs, municipal relationships, and long-term planning, giving the company continuity between the business David Duong built in Oakland and the organization now operating across California and Vietnam.