Display omitted •Silica nanoparticles have been reported in green manner.•A feasibility of producing pure silica from waste materials by alkali/acid treatment.•Acidic extraction, high purity 98% has been obtained.•Ash obtained from waster materials would be promising low cost raw material. The major interest of the paper deals with the extraction of silica from four natural sources such as rice husk, bamboo leaves, sugarcane bagasse and groundnut shell. These waste materials in large quantities can create a serious environmental problem. Hence, there is a need to adopt proper strategy to reduce the waste. In the present investigation, all the waste materials are subjected to moisture removal in a hot plate and sintered at 900°C for 7h. The sintered powder was treated with 1M NaOH to form sodium silicate and then with 6M H2SO4 to precipitate silica. The prepared silica powders were characterized by FT-IR, XRD and SEM-EDAX analysis. The silica recovered from different sources was found to vary between 52% and 78%. Magnesium substituted silica was formed from the groundnut waste and further treatment is required to precipitate silica.