This review focuses on reports of adsorbents prepared from naturally occurring materials and in particular of agricultural waste applied as adsorbent without carbonisation. The paper explores the history and use of such materials in the adsorption of textile dyes from aqueous solution. A discussion of terminology, strengths and limitations is included. The current scenario of the adsorption capacities is described and recommends the measurement of absolute adsorption isotherms in terms of the specific surface. The review includes a future line of work in this area and suggests as template in future publications: the exhaustive characterisation of the adsorbent, the inclusion of the dye formula to visualize the interactions and the use of the dyes names according to the Colour Index to allow comparisons.