About us

It started with Michael, a coffee.
And a disruptive idea for a better bin.

Hammersmith and Fulham senior highway engineer Michael Masella invited Andrew and Chris into the council in 2002 to discuss an innovative idea he had for tackling gum litter and explore how it might be brought to life. Drawing on his distinctive understanding of the street scene and how people interact with it, he proposed a completely new concept of bin that could wrap around lamp posts. These regularly spaced existing columns provide consistent locations for bins, making them easier to find when needed — without adding street clutter.

The idea was highly innovative: it could bring together the interests of the public, street cleansing teams and environmental groups by making more of existing infrastructure. It offered the potential to make street cleaning more efficient and reduce cigarette and gum litter — small items that had long proved difficult to prevent.

What began as a design consultation revealed the substantial investment in development and tooling needed to get the idea off the ground — an undertaking that would have stretched the council’s resources. Andrew and Chris saw its potential to reduce small-item litter and make street cleansing more efficient. With Michael’s encouragement and support, they offered to fund the entire development and launch as a private enterprise, bringing the product range to market at no cost to the council.

Rather than design a bin solely for the lamp columns used by Hammersmith and Fulham, Andrew and Chris took on the challenge of creating a bin and fixing system adaptable to the thousands of lamp post and sign post styles, sizes and shapes used around the world. Their unique system went on to receive two granted patents and multiple international design awards.

They also developed the bin to accommodate cigarette litter as well as gum, building a complete ecosystem of signage, installation options and accessories around the concept. Smartstreets has since developed distinctive, patented bike parking and other products, each designed to solve practical street-scene problems and offer benefits of its own.

Smartstreets grew from Michael’s insight, grounded in his in-depth knowledge of the street scene, and Andrew and Chris’s commitment to making it happen — driven by a shared passion for reducing cigarette and gum litter.