Abstract
With the world reeling from increasing environmental degradation resulting from plastic pollution and overexploitation of forest resources, eco-friendly alternatives are being sought after. In the current research, the potential of some agricultural residues as alternatives to plastic and wood were investigated. The study was aimed at investigating the suitability of locally available banana stems, pawpaw stems and soybeans straw for the extraction of pulp and production of paper for use in food packaging and particle boards for furniture making. The Kraft pulping process was successfully employed to extract cellulosic materials from banana stems, pawpaw stems, and soybeans straw. The yield of pulp (cellulose) was 41.2%, 42.5% and 43.4% for banana stems, pawpaw stem and soybeans straw respectively, whereas the moisture content, ash content, and pulp consistency ranged between 6.2 – 9.3%, 0.39 – 1.74%, and 25.50 – 28.5% respectively. FTIR analyses of the materials confirmed presence of cellulose while the SEM revealed the materials comprise of highly compacted thin sheets of carbon fibres on its surface. XRD results showed the presence of crystals with two major diffraction peaks at 2Ɵ = 15o and 24o for pawpaw stem and soybeans straw respectively; and three major diffraction peaks at 2Ɵ = 27o, 45o and 52o in banana stem, indicating the presence of crystalline structural formation. The pulps obtained from all three waste products were tested for their suitability in certain applications. While those from banana and pawpaw stems showed great prospects as paper and packaging materials such as shopping bags, soybeans straw appeared more suitable for use as feedstock for particleboards production. The results from the study indicate that these agricultural wastes have potential as substitutes for non-biodegradable plastic packaging, and can potentially reduce the reliance on forests for the production of pulp

Key words: Pulp, Agricultural waste, paper, cellulose, bags