At the center, Johnny Duong, Chief Operating Officer of California Waste Solutions, is pictured with CWS staff members at the company’s Oakland site.
A California Waste Solutions collection vehicle serving residents in San José, California.
Inside one of California Waste Solutions’ processing centers located in San José, California.
Beginning in 2027, CWS will offer curbside collection of household batteries in San José, paired with a newly ratified five-year Teamsters contract.
Our workforce is what makes these operations possible. Investing in them boosts our capacity to serve customers and grow initiatives like household battery pickup.”— Michael Duong, President, California Waste SolutionsOAKLAND, CA, UNITED STATES, September 17, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — California Waste Solutions, Inc. is generating headlines in San Jose this week after its workforce showed overwhelming approval for a new five-year labor deal, while the firm also rolled out a fresh household battery collection initiative. The company additionally served as an annual Diamond Sponsor for the Police Department Awards, underscoring its dedication to the local community.
In San Jose, California Waste Solutions employees—represented by the Teamsters—ratified a contract offer from the company that includes higher wages, expanded benefits, and increased vacation allowances.
These enhanced employee perks arrive as California Waste Solutions prepares to start curbside pickup of household batteries from single-family residences in San Jose starting in early 2027, extending a similar cart-top program it has operated for the City of Oakland since 2015.
These two major announcements highlight the critical role that motivating staff plays in enabling the company to advance new services, according to Michael Duong, President of California Waste Solutions.
“California Waste Solutions can deliver the services it does to its customers because we operate as a family business, and our employees are part of that family,” said Duong. “Their hard work is what allows us to provide the new battery collection and recycling service in the first place.”
These additional services are possible thanks to the company’s strong ties with its staff, Duong added.
Sergio Arrañaga, a business agent for Local 350 and the bargaining unit’s chief negotiator, commented: “Through this robust contract, they’ve demonstrated a commitment to elevating standards for workers across the entire waste sector,” said Arrañaga.
ABOUT THE UPCOMING BATTERY SERVICE
This service fits within San Jose's Recycle Right program, which includes the sorting guidelines residents already follow at home. It targets a specific and costly gap in municipal recycling: a material that is recyclable, hazardous if placed improperly, and has until now been difficult to dispose of conveniently.
“Since we started in business more than three decades ago, one constant in recycling has been the need to handle batteries correctly,” said David Duong, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of California Waste Solutions. “We’ve collected household batteries curbside in Oakland for the last ten years. We’re pleased that San Jose residents will now have the same opportunity.”
Duong launched the company in Oakland in 1992 with just eight used collection trucks. Today, CWS serves over 343,000 customers across Oakland and San Jose, operating out of six Bay Area recycling centers.
Residents are instructed to place covered household batteries in a clear, resealable plastic bag of about one quart, secure the terminals with tape, close the bag, and set it atop the recycling cart on regular pickup days. Crew members remove the bag before the cart is emptied, ensuring it never enters the compacted load.
“Every element of this program is designed so the battery never touches the load,” said Michael Duong, president of California Waste Solutions. “Sealed bag, taped terminals, placed on top of the cart, and moved to a separate truck compartment. Four steps, and the material stays separate from start to finish.”
IN DETAIL
The new service accepts alkaline and 9-volt batteries, as well as coin and button lithium-ion cells commonly found in watches, hearing aids, key fobs, and small gadgets. It excludes tool and equipment batteries, lead-acid or vehicle batteries, and the larger rechargeable lithium-ion packs used in power tools and consumer electronics.
But these excluded items don’t fall outside the recycling framework. Santa Clara County offers a free household hazardous waste drop-off service by appointment, and San Jose lists retail take-back locations. CWS says it will help the city educate residents on these differences.
Coin and button cells contain minimal energy, making them safe for sealed bags. Larger lithium-ion packs, however, can undergo thermal runaway, generating their own oxygen and resisting standard fire suppression. San Jose already cautions residents that such cells can ignite fires if placed in trash or recycling bins.
WHERE THE BATTERIES GO
Collected bags remain in a dedicated truck compartment for the entire route. They are then consolidated at a CWS facility and sent to a licensed battery recycler. The material never mixes with the commingled stream and is never landfilled. Steel, zinc, and manganese recovered from household alkaline cells are returned to manufacturing processes.
Battery recycling costs significantly more than recycling the paper, glass, or plastic collected alongside it. Cells must be sorted by chemistry, packaged, transported under hazardous-materials regulations, and processed at permitted facilities. By weight, household batteries rank among the most expensive items in a residential program, yet CWS still collects them.
“Just as we’re willing to invest more in our employees, as seen in our latest negotiations with the Teamsters, we’re ready to pay the extra cost for better service to our customers,” said President Michael Duong. “For California Waste Solutions, our employees and customers are the same: they’re the neighbors we see daily, meet at the mall, or sit beside at lunch. That’s why we prioritize quality.”
BATTERIES BREAK THE RECYCLING MODEL
CWS uses Pellenc optical sorters and is adding EverestLabs artificial-intelligence scanners to its lines. These systems can identify intact items at high speeds, but they can’t prevent a battery from failing inside a collection truck.
“We’ve spent years improving our lines with better recognition technology, and it performs exactly as intended,” Michael Duong said. “But it can’t solve this issue. By the time a battery makes it to the plant, the critical decision has already been made at the cart. This isn’t a technology issue—it’s an education issue, and it’s one we can address with residents.”
So, the key control point is the cart, not the plant. The resident is the only one who can keep a battery out of the compactor. The city and the hauler are tasked with making instructions clear enough to follow.
As reported in Recycling Today, California Waste Solutions recently announced it would integrate AI technology into its optical sorting systems to help employees better identify items on the conveyor belt.
POWERING DOWN COSTS
Fire Rover, which tracks publicly reported fires at waste and recycling facilities in the U.S. and Canada, logged 448 waste-related fires in 2025—about 100 of them catastrophic—resulting in roughly $2.5 billion in losses. Waste, paper, and plastic plants accounted for nearly half of these incidents, with batteries identified as a major contributing factor.
San Jose has already experienced a battery-related fire that destroyed a public recycling center, causing $6.8 million in damages.
CWS is also exploring infrared cameras, smoke and heat detection, and fire-suppression systems for its collection fleet.
“People don’t think of a person when they toss a battery into a cart, and that’s understandable—you can’t see us from your driveway,” David Duong said. “But someone is behind that load, and someone stands over it on the sorting line. They’re our employees and part of our family. A sealed bag on top of the cart protects them. So we invest in them.”
California is working on a producer-funded battery stewardship system under the Responsible Battery Recycling Act of 2022, with CalRecycle still drafting the rules. Until that system is operational, the practical solution for a household battery in San Jose is the city’s collection program and the company running it.
A SHARED SYSTEM
Recycle Right operates on the principle that residents sort correctly, crews manage the bags, and batteries reach a permitted recycler—a approach CWS says it has followed since 1992. Oakland and San Jose maintain different lists of accepted materials, so the company publishes city-specific guidance rather than a single set of instructions that might be incorrect for one of them. This guidance is supported through school visits, community events, multilingual resources, and collaboration with property managers.
“We’re a community-focused service company,” David Duong said. “Our job is to make doing the right thing simple, explain it clearly, and manage the material properly once residents do their part. That’s what we owe the cities we serve and the people living in them.”
ALSO IN THE SAN JOSE DIARY THIS WEEK
California Waste Solutions once again served as the Diamond Sponsor for the 2026 San Jose Police Department Major Awards Ceremony.
“This is one evening when the city publicly recognizes what its residents and officers have accomplished over the past year,” said David Duong. “We were honored to sponsor the event again at such a high level, continuing our five-year partnership with the ceremony, which began during the height of Covid-19. It’s another key commitment we’ve made to community and to recognizing its top contributors.”
ABOUT CALIFORNIA WASTE SOLUTIONS
California Waste Solutions Inc. is a family-owned recycling and resource-recovery firm headquartered in Oakland. Founded in 1992 by David Duong, it offers collection, processing, customer support, and material recovery for residential, commercial, and municipal clients throughout Northern California, including Oakland and San Jose. The company runs six Bay Area recycling centers and serves more than 343,000 customers. City-specific recycling details can be found at calwaste.com/recycling-guide.
Wendy Nguyen
The King Of Trash
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