On the highway outside the city, a caravan of squat trucks is hauling radioactive waste to a dump site.

Long-distance truckers are hauling waste from the metropolitan region to dumps as far away as West Virginia, Michigan and Ohio.

Most were Italian immigrants from one region of Italy and they hauled municipal waste in horse drawn wagons and hand separated valuable discards for resale.

This is bad news for companies like Chemical Waste Management, whose major line of business is hauling, burning and burying hazardous waste.

Refuse collection services are available from Copper Basin Sanitation, which hauls waste to the Glennallen landfill.

Others are pursuing ventures to haul hazardous waste in Oklahoma and municipal wastes in Washington State.

The fee was intended to resolve a dispute between the two over the right to haul waste from a Bridgeport, Conn., incinerator, federal documents say.

A grapple truck is a truck that has a grapple loader mounted to its frame which is used for loading and sometimes hauling bulky waste.

Meanwhile, the trucks hauling waste to faraway landfills are damaging the highways and air as well as costing a fortune.

Fourteen Brooklyn sanitation workers were arrested yesterday on charges that they solicited and collected bribes to haul commercial waste illegally, city officials said.