The investigations were concentrated on the assessment of the sorption capacity of various clays against Cd and Pb. The samples were collected from Tertiary and Quaternary clays from 6 selected deposits within the Lower Silesia and represented three mineral groups (smectite, kaolinite and poly-mineral clays) characterised by the following properties: clay fraction content from 12 to 56% CEC from 8.7 to 72.8 meq/100g, specific surface from 7 to 149 m2. In the analysis of the metals sorption the BATCH method was applied and the parameters were as follows: the suspension density 10 g/l and initial metals concentrations: 0.5 mg/l, 1.0 mg/l, 5 mg/l, 10 mg/l and 20 mg/l in distilled water and landfill leachate. The investigations results imply that the highest sorption capacity in relation to metals is represented by soils with the highest CEC values and the largest specific surface (i.e. the soils from Krzeniów). The investigations pointed also to the influence of the metals species form and the ionic strenght of the solution on the sorption process. The sorption capacity of soils mainly depends on their mineral composition, whereas the grain-size composition is of a lesser importance. In the case of 4 of the soils investigated, the sorption capacity for lead was higher than that for cadmium, whereas for the other two soils, the order was reverse, which may be due to a different mineral composition of these samples. In the case of the sorption of metals from leachates with the concentration of 20 mg/l the soils were close to the state of saturation - this holds mostly for the soils characterised by a lower CEC value.