City Government

California Waste Solutions to Move from West Oakland to Army Base

Published

8 years ago

October 26, 2018

From left to right: Kristina Duong, David Duong, and Victor Duong.

California Waste Solutions (CWS) is doing all it can to vacate its current location in West Oakland, which is surrounded by residential properties, and move to the Oakland Army base, allowing them space to expand their existing operations.

The growing recycling company is among the largest in Northern California and is consistently ranked as one of the top companies of its kind, nation-wide by Waste Age Magazine.

The new plant is scheduled to be a state-of-the -art 12- acre facility, built at the Army base.

Negotiations between CWS and the City of Oakland have been jump-started to facilitate a fast-tracked departure from the company’s two current locations in West Oakland.

Jackie Nelson, a West Oakland resident, says is looking forward to CWS’ departure from the neighborhood. “We hope they will continue to hire Oakland residents and the those who were formerly incarcerated,” she said.

CWS is a minority business owned by the Duong family from Vietnam. They barely escaped the ravages of the Vietnam War on a small boat in 1977 after losing the family’s paper mill.
David, the eldest of the seven Duong children, was 16 years old when the family left Saigon with only the clothes on their backs.

After spending nearly two years in a refugee camp in the Philippines, they arrived in San Francisco. The 16-member Duong family squeezed into two small studio apartments.
At 19, David and his siblings collected recyclables every night for three years after school and saved enough to purchase their first warehouse.

Today, CWS employs more than 300 people at Oakland and San Jose locations.

“Community is the core of our business. We’re committed to providing exceptional service to our customers, and we must continuously invest in the communities we serve,” said Duong.

Rev. Ken Chambers, pastor of West End Baptist Church, near the business, said he wants to work with the Duong family to find gainful employment for West Oakland residents.

They also own and operate an integrated waste management facility in Vietnam—Vietnam Waste Solutions—which manages solid waste collection, landfills, recycling and composting for the entire country.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

2 days ago

July 5, 2026

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Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”