Groundwater Contamination by E-Waste and Its Remedial Measure - A Literature Review

Abstract

The very precious resource of Earth, the groundwater is being contaminated and polluted day by day. E-Waste is one of the major cause for this problem related to ground water. E-wastes are produced mainly due to discarded electronic gadgets like PCs, tablets, hard drives, printers, monitors, batteries, mobile phones, television, etc. The use of these electronic gadgets is increasing enormously day by day around the globe. Lack of awareness about the proper disposal of these e-wastes cause serious health and environmental issue in developing countries like India and to some extent in developed countries. Discarded computers, mobile phones and other electronic equipment that are considered as e -waste contain hazardous toxic metals like chromium, lead, mercury, iron, zinc, copper, cadmium etc. These e -wastes are dumped in the landfills near the industries where large area of land is available. As most of the industries are located near the water sources, the toxic e-wastes are percolated inside the water hence make the water contaminated inside the deep aquifers. This water is not safe for drinking and other purposes. The quantity of pollutants is more near to the landfill sites and reduces as the distance between the landfill site and aquifer increases. In the present work, a literature survey of groundwater pollution by e-waste and its remedial measure to reduce groundwater contamination is being done.