Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were extracted from an industry soil and a sediment using hot-water (subcritical extraction) at 50 bar and 250{degrees}C. Although the PCB concentration in the sediment was nearly a thousand times lower than that in the industry soil, all the individual PCB congeners studied were quantitatively removed from the samples. The high removal efficiencies of PCBs from soil and sediment agree very well with those obtained for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from highly contaminated soil at the same extraction conditions, demonstrating that water is a potentially useful extraction solvent for many organics.