The purpose of this study is to promote utilization of paper mill sludge as an adsorbent for stabilizing heavy metals in contaminated water by measuring the adsorption capacity of paper mill sludge for cadmium and arsenic. To measure adsorption capacity of paper mill sludge, sorption isotherm experiments were analyzed by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. Also, two methods of chemical modifications were applied to improve the adsorption capacities of paper-mill-sludge: the first method used sodium hydroxide (NaOH), called PMS-1, and the second method used the NaOH and tartaric acid ($C_4H_6O_6$) together, called PMS-2. For Cd adsorption, PMS-1 presented the increase of reactivity while PMS-2 presented the decline of reactivity compared to that of untreated paper-mill-sludge. In case of As adsorption, both PMS-1 and PMS-2 showed the decrease of adsorption capacities. This is because zeta-potential of paper mill sludge was changed to more negative values during chemical modification process due to the hydroxyl group in NaOH and the carboxyl group in $C_4H_6O_6$, respectively. Therefore, we may conclude that the chemical treatment process increases adsorption capacity of paper mill sludge for cation heavy metals such as Cd but not for As.