The scarcity of water resources and their pollution speaks about the need to provide the population with environmentally safe drinking water. This problem is very relevant at the present time. Accumulating in reservoirs, surface-active substances exert a strong toxic effect on flora and fauna, impair the organoleptic characteristics of water, and hinder the processes of self-purification of water bodies. The processes of destruction of the majority of surfactants in natural waters occur rather slowly. One of the effective ways to combat water pollution by surfactants is to prevent them from entering water. Many of the techniques are laborious enough, they require expensive equipment, they are not precise enough and express. Therefore, the development of simple, rapid, accessible techniques suitable for determining the content of surfactants of different classes in soils, sewage and other objects is still an important and urgent task. The article describes methods of sorption concentration of surface-active substances with the use of inorganic residues, and with the use of natural and synthetic sorbents. In the methods of sorption concentration of surfactants with the use of inorganic residues, as precipitating agents and sorbents, oxides of calcium, magnesium, aluminum, marble chips, bischofite, magnesium sulfate can be simultaneously used. A method using electrochemical destructive oxidation is also used. Natural sorbents include various natural porous hydrophobic materials, which, due to their structure, possess considerable sorption ability. Natural sorbents are very diverse because of the difference in structure and conditions of their formation. These include inorganic products of natural precipitation reactions (bauxites, laterites, ferrolites, etc.), clays (hydroaluminosilicates), active earths (sili-cates), as well as organic precipitates and products of the transformation of organic substances of plant and animal origin (muds of lakes and seas, humus, peat, lignite, etc.). The process of application is quite expensive, which sig-nificantly reduces the economic efficiency of the use of natural sorbents.