With the growth of the world's population, the need for food and materials production also increases, leading to the depletion of natural resources and increasing environment pollution. As a result of intensive agricultural production that relies on artificial fertilizers and pesticides, as well as mining and industrial activities, water systems are polluted with heavy metals. Zinc is one of the five most exploited metals in the world. It plays an important role in various industries, which is why contamination of water systems with zinc is very common. Although zinc is an essential metal, too high concentration can cause health problems, and is most harmful to aquatic organisms. Therefore, in order to preserve biodiversity of water systems and human health, it is important to effectively manage wastewater and remove zinc before discharge into surface waters. In this paper, the possibility of using food processing by-products/waste in the zinc removal from polluted waters was examined. The removal of zinc from aqueous solutions containing 30.2 mg Zn/L and 112.7 mg Zn/L was carried out by sorption using a batch performance on the waste materials from local plants for food processing and production: olive, cherry and sour cherry pits, and the residues of sea urchin. The removal efficiency for the lower initial zinc concentration was in the range ≈ 40‒65%, with the best removal on olive pits. The removal efficiency for the higher initial zinc concentration was in the range ≈ 21‒40%, with the best removal on the cherry pits. For the tested experimental conditions, better zinc removal was achieved at a lower initial zinc concentration. The residual concentration of zinc (up to ≈ 18.14 mg/L for the lower, and ≈ 88.7 mg/L for the higher initial concentration) in the treated water exceeded the maximum allowable concentration of 2 mg/L. The by-products/waste could be used for the treatment of zinc-contaminated water at least in the pretreatment stage, before using of more expensive conventional sorbents. This approach could contribute to more sustainable management of solid waste, as well as to reducing the total water treatment costs.