The tannery wastewater effluent consists of complex compounds requiring a series of treatment processes to meet the desirable effluent discharge standards. The current study deals with the comparison of degradation efficiencies obtained in terms of turbidity, total suspended solids (TSS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal by using alum as a chemical coagulant, orange peel powder (OPP) and activated orange peel powder (AOPP) as naturally obtained adsorbents respectively. The experimental analysis showed that the maximum COD reduction of 49 % approx. was obtained using AOPP at optimum coagulant dosage of 2 g/L, at pH 4 and flocculation time of 30 min. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) showed that the AOPP consists of porous structure that leads to adsorption of pollutants over the surface. Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis resulted in surface area reduction of AOPP from 11.663 m2/g to 1.289 m2/g before and after adsorption correlating the experimental results of the study. Moreover, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Total organic carbon (TOC) proved that the chemical properties also play an important role in degrading the pollutants present in TWE. It can be concluded that the AOPP can be used as a cost-efficient alternative for pre-treatment of TWE.