SOIL CONTAMINATION DUE TO E-WASTE.

Running Head: SOIL CONTAMINATION DUE TO E-WASTE
Soil Contamination Due to E-waste
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SOIL CONTAMINATION 2
ABSTRACT
This report begins with introducing electronic wastes as any electronic or electric items that need
to be disposed of and majorly include inkjet, computer towers, televisions or old cell phones.
These wastes contain numerous substances, several of which are harmful in nature and could
have advanced negative effect to the environment, specifically soil. The findings of this report
shows that chromium, cadmium, copper, and lead average concentration topsoil samples from a
site with electronic waste is far above the range for agricultural standard soil and is more than the
limits acceptable. The two proposed solutions that can be implemented to tackle the soil
contamination by the concentrations of chromium, cadmium, lead, and copper from the electric
and electronic wastes include selective extraction and urban mining methods. Selective
extraction method entails partitioning of e-waste into particular fractions which can be
selectively extracted by the use of suitable reagents and by considering the correspondences
between the contaminated soil and the sediments, the procedures of extraction can be adapted
from the method of soil chemical analysis. Urban mining involves reclaiming valuable
components from existing electronic waste in the soil.

SOIL CONTAMINATION 3
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................4
FINDINGS.....................................................................................................................................................4
DISCUSSION.................................................................................................................................................5
Selective Extraction.................................................................................................................................5
Urban Mining...........................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................7
RECOMMENDATIONS..................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................9