**2.2 Corn waste**

Corn stover is the biggest agricultural waste in the United States (**Figure 6**) due to the high productivity of the farms. Corn stover refers to stalks, leaves and cobs of the remnants of corn harvest. About 100 million dry tonnes of corn stover are collected annually making corn stover not only a renewable and sustainable material but also one of the cheapest and most available residues in the US. Corn cobs serve as a novel source of raw material for the microbial production of fuel alcohols

**Figure 5.** *(a) Mountains of bananas being discarded daily [20]; (b) waste banana fruit peels [22].*

**Figure 6.** *(a) the process of harvesting corn [23]; (b) corn Stover leftover [24].*

and other value-added products [25, 26]. Corn harvest consists of 48% stalk of the total dry mass, 28% leaves, 15% cobs, and 8% husk [27].
