In order to effectively utilize the bagasse waste generated by sugar factories, an attempt is made to produce activated carbon from it by steam activation and chemical activation (with zinc chloride). Upon carbonization at temperatures from 1073 K to 1273 K, bagasse generates char having a specific surface area of 405-600 m(2)/g and a pore volume of 0.2-0.3 ml/g, A sample of activated carbon was prepared from mechanically-mixed and compressed bagasse by activation at 1073 K for 1 hour with steam added in an amount of 3.0 g-water/g-bagasse. The resulting activated carbon is found to have a specific surface area of 878 m(2)/g and a hardness of 2.5 x 10(-3) kg/cm(2), In addition, it has an adsorption equilibrium for aqueous phenol and acetic acid which can be expressed by either a Langmuir type or Freundlich type isotherm.