Wastewater from abattoir is known to be highly contaminated, which may cause harm to the environment and health if not handled carefully; many treatment approaches have been used to treat this wastewater. However, most of the approaches have its constraints, such as being expensive, ineffective or requires special skills; therefore, the needs arise to develop an inexpensive, effective, and eco-friendly way of treating this wastewater especially in developing economy. Sugarcane bagasse has been proposed due to its availability, in expensiveness, biodegradability, and effectiveness in removing contaminants; in order to determine its effectiveness, different dosages of activated sugarcane bagasse (ASCB) (25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50 g/L) and reaction time of 24, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h were studied. The results of the experiment showed a pH increase from acidic to alkaline medium after 24 h through 96 h; the optimum dosage, reaction time, and percentage removal of COD, TDS, EC, and colour were determined to be (25 g/l, 24 h, 51.92), (25 g/l, 24 h, 21.3), (30 g/l, 120 h, 68.6), and (50 g/l, 120 h, 83.54), respectively. These findings showed a significant success on the usage of this adsorbent in the removal of contaminants in the wastewater with its effectiveness increasing by increasing its dosage; therefore, ASCB can be used in place of another adsorbent for treating abattoir wastewater, being it cheap and effective. Recommendation was made on the study of increasing the dosages of ASCB and keeping the reaction time constant. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.