Fresh leachate and effluents samples were collected from the holding tank, anaerobic, anoxic, and aerobic lagoons at Shanghai Laogang Refuse Landfill, the largest landfill in China with a placement scale of 9000 t refuse per day. To characterize the difference in leachate along the treatment processes, especially the information about size distribution of colloids in those leachate, the organic matters were size-fractioned into suspended particles (SP, >1.2 mu m), coarse colloids (CC, 1.2-0.45 mu m), fine colloids (FC, 0.45 mu m to 1 kDa MW, 1 Da = 1/16 O atomic mass unit), and dissolved organic matters (DM, <1 kDa MW) using micro-filtration and ultra-filtration membranes in order. The parameters, such as COD (chemical oxygen demand), TOC (total organic carbon), TS (total solid), pH, TP (total phosphate), TN (total nitrogen), FS (fixed solid), NH4+, IC (inorganic carbon), TC (total carbon), color, turbidity and conductivity in the filtrates resulting from sequential filtration of leachate, were then determined, and quantitative relationships between these parameters and the membrane molecular sizes used were established. Typically, the total removal of COD, NH4+, conductivity and P were found to be 75%, 75%, 42% and 85%, respectively, after the biological treatment processes used at Laogang Refuse Landfill. Dissolved fractions were predominant in fresh leachate and in effluents from treatment processes in terms of TOC with a content of over 47%. The molecular weight (MW) percentage distribution in leachate varied as the leachate was treated in the biological treatment stages. The percentages of TOC of fine colloid fractions increased from 6% to 38% while those of dissolved fractions decreased from 78% to 47%. TN in leachate also predominated in the dissolved fraction, occupying over 58%, while those TP in leachate were combined with the SS and CC fractions. The ratios of ortho-phosphate/TP and NH4+/TN in leachate and effluents were over 50% and 80%, respectively. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.