Abstract The removal of dyes from colored effluents, particularly from textile industries, is one of the major environmental concerns these days. Current methods for removing dyes from wastewaters are costly and cannot effectively be used to treat wide range of such wastewaters. This work describes the use of commercial available activated carbon as an efficient adsorbent material for dye removal. Aqueous solutions of various basic dye Methylene Blue (MB) and azo-dye Tartrazine (TZ) concentrations 5-20 mg l-1 and 10-100 mg l-1, respectively, were shaken with certain amount of adsorbents to determine the adsorption capacity. The effects of adsorbents dose, initial pH, initial dye concentration, agitation speed and contact time on dye removal have been studied. Maximum dye was removed from the solution within 60-90 min after the beginning of every experiment. Adsorption parameters were found to fit well into Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm models with correlation coefficient (R2 > 0.99) in the concentration range of MB and TZ studied.