Adsorption process has been proven one of the best water treatment technologies around the world and activated carbon is undoubtedly considered as universal adsorbent for the removal of diverse types of pollutants from water. However, widespread use of commercial activated carbon is sometimes restricted due to its higher costs. Attempts have been made to develop inexpensive adsorbents utilizing numerous agro-industrial and municipal waste materials. Use of waste materials as low-cost adsorbents is attractive due to their contribution in the reduction of costs for waste disposal, therefore contributing to environmental protection. In this review, an extensive list of low-cost adsorbents (prepared by utilizing different types of waste materials) from vast literature has been compiled and their adsorption capacities for various aquatic pollutants as available in the literature are presented. It is evident from the literature survey that various low-cost adsorbents have shown good potential for the removal of various aquatic pollutants. However, there are few issues and drawbacks on the use of low-cost adsorbents in water treatment that have been discussed in this paper. Additionally, more research is needed to find the practical utility of low-cost adsorbents on commercial scale. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.