States are trashing troves of masks and pandemic gear as huge, costly stockpiles linger and expire

When the coronavirus pandemic took hold in an unprepared U.S., many states like Ohio scrambled for masks and other protective gear. Supplies were so limited in 2020 that the state bought millions of medical gowns from a marketing and printing company and spent about $20 million to try to get personal protective equipment made in-state.

Three years later, as the grips of the pandemic have loosened, Ohio and other states are now trying to deal with an excess of protective gear, ditching their supplies in droves.

With expiration dates passing and few requests to tap into the stockpile, Ohio auctioned off 393,000 gowns for just $2,451 and ended up throwing away another 7.2 million, along with expired masks, gloves and other materials. The now expiring supplies had cost about $29 million in federal money.

A similar reckoning is happening around the country. Items are aging, and as a deadline to allocate federal COVID-19 cash approaches next year, states must decide how much to invest in maintaining warehouses and supply stockpiles.

An Associated Press investigation found that at least 15 states, from Alaska to Vermont, have tossed some of their trove of PPE because of expiration, surpluses and a lack of willing takers.

Into the trash went more than 18 million masks, 22 million gowns, 500,000 gloves, and more. That’s not counting states that didn’t give the AP exact figures or responded in cases or other measurements. Rhode Island said it shredded and recycled 829 tons of PPE; Maryland disposed of over $93 million in supplies.

“What a real waste. That’s what happens when you don’t prepare, when you have a bust-and-boom public health system,” where a lack of planning leads to panicked over-purchasing in emergencies, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “It shows that we really have to do a better job of managing our stockpiles.”

The AP sent inquiries about PPE stockpiles to all 50 states over the past several months. About half responded.

States emphasize that they distributed far more gear than they discarded and have gone to lengths to donate the leftovers. Washington state sent hundreds of thousands of supplies to the Marshall Islands last year. Pennsylvania says it offered PPE to 10,000 cities, heath facilities and more throughout the pandemic. Both states still ended up throwing out loads of expired items.

Some states found limited post-expiration uses, such as training exercises.

Many states are keeping at least a portion, and sometimes all, of their remaining protective gear. Some, such as Minnesota, even plan to update their stockpiles.

But others say the vagaries of the pandemic and the PPE supply left no choice but to acquire the items, and now to throw them out, however reluctantly. Expiration dates are set because materials can degrade and might not work as intended. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has set the fair market value of expired supplies at zero dollars.

“Anytime you’re involved in a situation where you’re recalling how difficult it was to get something in the first place, and then having to watch that go or not be used in the way it was intended to be used, certainly, there’s some frustration in that,” said Louis Eubank, who runs the South Carolina health department’s COVID-19 coordination office. The state has discarded over 650,000 expired masks.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, health care product distributors typically kept 20 to 30 days of supplies. That wasn’t enough when the pandemic struck and demand skyrocketed for N95 masks, gloves and gowns. They became so scarce that some health care workers wore homemade masks and used trash bags for gowns.

Hampered by years of underfunding and expanded responsibilities, the U.S government’s Strategic National Stockpile “was not equipped to handle the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to an inspector general’s report. As the federal stockpile dwindled, states plunged into global bidding wars and anything-goes arrangements. Massachusetts even used the New England Patriots’ team plane to collect masks from China.

The explosive demand triggered a surge — and ultimately a hard crash — for American PPE manufacturers. The AP found in 2020 that states spent over $7 billion in a few months on PPE, ventilators and some other high-demand medical devices in a seller’s market. Ultimately, the federal government paid for many of the supplies.

“There was no way to know, at the time of purchase, how long the supply deficit would last or what quantities would be needed,” Ohio Department of Health spokesperson Ken Gordon said.

Ohio distributed more than 227 million pieces of protective equipment during the pandemic. But as the supply crunch and the health crisis eased, demand faded, especially for gowns.

Now, “states, hospitals, manufacturers – everybody in the whole system — has extra product,” said Linda Rouse O’Neill of the Health Industry Distributors Association.

Given the glut, stockpiled items are selling for bargain prices, if at all. Vermont got $82.50 for 105,000 boot covers and 29 cents apiece for thousands of safety goggles.