**1. Introduction**

Oil palm, *Elaeis guineensis,* is cultivated on a vast scale as a source of oil in West and Central Africa, where it originated, and in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, where it predominates and thrives luxuriantly, and has become wellestablished over years [1]. The explosive expansion of oil palm plantation in these regions and countries has generated enormous amount of vegetable waste, creating problems in re-planting operations and tremendous environmental concern. Thus, oil palm biomass refers to agricultural by-products generated from oil palm industries during re-planting, pruning and milling activities, which in most cases is left to decompose in the fields [2]. In essence, fibres of empty fruit bunches are either by-products of the process of extracting palm oil form the palm fruits, cultivation activities or remains of the trees at the end of their useful life [3]. The wastes are usually disposed indiscriminately or used by the locals as cooking fuel, both of which are not environmentally friendly During oil extraction process, the fruit bunches are left empty as residues after fruit extraction. The presence of these empty fruit bunches (EFB) at mill's gate is unavoidable, but the great headache these biomass residues cause mill management cannot be ignored in waste management and disposal strategies [4].

Millions of tons of oil palm empty fruit bunches on the average are generated annually in different countries across the globe. In Malaysia, for instance, over 5.2 million tons of EFB were generated in 2002 [5]. Thus, oil palm industry is the largest contributor of biomass in Malaysia. These biomass residues are continually generated in large quantities annually with only a small fraction being converted into value-added products while a large percentage are left underutilised [2]. Globally, in 2014, 22.4 million tons of EFB were estimated to have been produced [6], as waste from crude oil palm (COP) processing, the amount of which is abundantly high [7].

The abundance of oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) has created enormous environmental issue such as fouling and attraction of pests, thereby posing very serious threats to humans and environment. In the context of the afore-mentioned challenges, examining oil palm EFB as an alternative fibrous material to other known pulpable resources such as wood, bamboos, bagasse, straws and grasses, strikes an important concordant note in converting waste to wealth and enhancing environmental wellness.

In countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, oil palm is one of the non-woody plants that have shown great potential as papermaking raw materials. Therefore, this book chapter will attempt to examine the fibre morphological characteristics of OPEFB, the chemical nature of oil palm fibre, the papermaking potentials of empty fruit bunches (EFB) and ultimately their impact on the environment.
