North London rubbish collectors, Haringey Enterprise, have been ordered to remove any soft toys they may have strapped to the front of their trucks as they pose a risk to small children who might be drawn to said, abducted squishies and thereby get squishied themselves, we presume.

It's health and safety gone mad, do we hear you cry? Well yes, in a way it is. But we're also secretly relieved. Seeing Little Ted with only one ear and his stuffing falling out his side tied mercilessly to the front of a growling dump truck and gathering soot from our dirty roads has always evoked pity in Londonist's soft heart. Pollyanna dollies and scary clown toys so splayed have affected us less but one can't discriminate when it comes to soft toys. Free one, free them all.

Enterprise also claim that these mascots make their fleet look unprofessional and could distract dustcart drivers from keeping an eye on the road. Well, could, we suppose if they've captured an entire children's bedroom's worth of cuddlies to decorate the dashboard. But, really, despite our support for the poor, neglected bears and such, we also have to sympathise with our rubbish collectors who frankly endure all the crap we can't bear to have in our house, get up really early and provide an essential yet thankless local service way before most of us even have our first cup of tea. If a mascot makes their day that bit more joyful, Enterprise should get their big, corporate noses out of human attempts to make life and work more pleasant.

Matchbox rubbish truck image courtesy of Maggie Osterberg's Flickrstream under the Creative Commons Atribution license.