The investigation of possible use of low molecular weight crab shell chitosan (MW 20 kDa) in the treatment of dairy waste water was studied. Various experiments have been carried out using batch adsorption technique to study the effects of the process variables, which include contact time, stirring speed, pH and adsorbent dosage. Treated effluent characteristics at optimum condition showed that chitosan can be effectively used as adsorbent in the treatment of dairy wastewater. The optimum conditions for this study were at 150 mg/l of chitosan, pH 5 and 50 min of mixing time with 50 rpm of mixing speed. Chitosan showed the highest performance under these conditions with 79 % COD, 93 % turbidity and 73 % TSS reduction. The result showed that chitosan is an effective coagulant, which can reduce the level of COD, TSS and turbidity in dairy industry wastewater.