Thousands of medical gowns and face masks leftover from the County of San Diego’s Covid-19 response could be in the hands of medical students helping Tijuana communities. But instead, much of it may be sitting in a landfill.
The county confirmed it spent $5.2 million since 2020 storing tons of untouched masks, gowns and hand sanitizing stations in a private warehouse. It had been maintaining a supply of PPE as a strategic stockpile should another global health disaster hit, according to spokesperson Tim McClain. But only months before much of it expired did the county act to try and rehome it.
All of that stored PPE expired mid-August which means no U.S. hospital or clinic can use it. One woman says she could have.
Laura Luxemburg runs a foundation called Ssubi which specializes in transporting material like these to other countries, so it doesn’t go to waste. Luxemburg said the county contacted her asking if she could find a way to rehome all of that untouched PPE.
Luxemburg said she would if the county could help pay for the expense of transporting it. She jumped into action, meeting with officials in southern Baja California and arranged for permits and trucks to ship the PPE to medical schools for students’ use across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Luxemburg provided Voice of San Diego a copy of a draft $143,366 contract she said she won through public bid in May. Then she learned the county started clearing some of the material she was slated to move to Mexico. She emailed the county on July 9 that she’d still accept a reduced amount of mainly disposable hospital gowns and revised her costs down to $97,470.
Then, she says, the county ghosted her.
Luxemburg said she found out on July 16 the county decided to go with another vendor. Records show the county signed a $90,050 contract on July 22 with Junkluggers of San Diego, a franchise hauling company. That company has a standing five-year, $2.5 million contract to haul and dispose of things for the county on an on-call basis.
Laura Luxemburg, CEO of the nonprofit she started, Ssubi Foundation, loads printers from the county of San Diego into her van on Sept. 10, 2025. / MacKenzie Elmer
Luxemburg says she doubts a private hauler like Junkluggers knows how to find places to take so much expired medical equipment or repurposed PPE within just a few weeks of its expiration date. That’s what her foundation specializes in, and that’s why the county contacted her, she said.
Now what amounts to almost 43 shipping containers worth of material is probably going to a landfill, Luxemburg fears.
“It takes 450 years for one of those gowns to break down (in a landfill),” Luxemburg said. “The county is supposed to be zero waste.”
The county set a goal to achieve zero waste going into landfills by 2045, according to the Climate Action Plan it passed last year. In just five years, the county is supposed to hit 90 percent waste diversion.
Adolfo Delgado, director of the non-profit United Binational Committee for Children in Tijuana, told Voice he was expecting to distribute that COVID-era PPE to San Diego State University medical students who will be setting up community health clinics in Tijuana starting in October. But now, the program has to go out and purchase that material instead.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Delgado said. “Instead of paying for the trucks to (bring the PPE) down to help our communities, the county is paying people to throw it away.”
Cameron Robinson, who owns the San Diego Junkluggers franchise, said “lots of it” was recycled and taken to different community organizations. But he wouldn’t specify where all the material went.
Luxemburg said she would like to know from Junkluggers who in the community could accept and reuse that much medical waste.
“I have plenty of stuff I can’t get across the border,” Luxemburg said. “I’d love to meet them.”
Tim McClain, a spokesperson for the county, told Voice in an email that the county didn’t issue the contract to Ssubi because the foundation “wasn’t willing to take all the materials.”
“Given that barrier, Junkluggers was awarded the contract,” McClain wrote.
That’s flat out untrue, Luxemburg said.
A copy of her unsigned contract and email exchanges with Kristen McEachron with the county’s contract and purchasing department shows Luxemburg trying to work with county staff after the amount of PPE she was asked to take suddenly dropped by a few hundred pallets.
There were also inaccuracies within the contract – like the name of her foundation was listed as an LLC not a non–profit — the county first gave her that Luxemburg sought to correct before she could sign it anyway, she said.
McClain said the county was working with Junkluggers to request they don’t dispose of non-expired gowns and materials.
When asked why the county waited so long to deal with the expiring material, McClain, the county spokesperson said the county hung onto it because healthcare providers regularly contact the county to provide PPE.
“Since the peak of COVID the county has diligently donated gowns/PPE to healthcare providers,” he said.
In 2024, the county distributed 63,000 gowns, according to McClain. Maintaining a supply of PPE to protect public health and safety for local essential workers is part of the county’s emergency preparedness operations, McClain wrote.