SEATTLE - As Spencer Smissaert hauled the night's trash to the Dumpsters behind his work Thursday, he pointed to the spot where he often finds people smoking crack.

It's even worse in the winter, he said, when transients seek out shelter in the Dumpsters between Fifth and Sixth avenues just east of Westlake Center. That's when it frequently reeks of urine and feces, pretty much what you'd expect from a downtown alley, he said.

"Sometimes you open the lid, and it will be in there," said Smissaert, an employee at Old Navy.

Smissaert isn't the only one who could do without the foul odors and behaviors around downtown Dumpsters. Next year, Mayor Greg Nickels wants to expand a "Dumpster-free Alley" program that would remove them from public alleys in the downtown business district to curtail crime and promote recycling.

The often dingy and graffiti-covered Dumpsters also are magnets for drug dealers and prostitutes who hide behind them. Supporters hope that removing the Dumpsters will help clean up downtown and rid the streets of "nuisance" crime.

The Dumpster-free program would start next spring and be the first stage of a plan that eventually would include other neighborhoods such as South Lake Union, the University District, Lower Queen Anne and Fremont.

"Overall, I think the downtown community would be supportive because you would have open, clear alleyways. People would be able to see up and down, and people wouldn't be able to hide behind them to do illegal activity," said David Dillman, spokesman for the Downtown Seattle Association and Metropolitan Improvement District.

"I think most of the community would be supportive depending on how much it costs and the logistics of pickup and how convenient or inconvenient it would be," he said.

For the past six years, many Pioneer Square businesses and restaurants took a similar approach in a voluntary program and paid for a "Dumpster-free" service offered by CleanScapes Inc., a local waste-management company. Trucks collect plastic bags set out in the alley instead. Bags are colored differently to sort trash from recyclables.

That program's success in revitalizing some of the seedier alleys in historic Pioneer Square has city officials and some business groups convinced that it could work for the greater downtown. It may also helped CleanScapes win the Seattle Public Utilities contract next year for trash collection downtown and in other areas, valued at $20 million annually.

But not everyone is sold on the idea, which is being pitched to the City Council along with utility rate increases next year for residential customers.

Some are concerned about costs, since the program would charge by the bag -- now proposed at $5 per bag, which is more than the Dumpster rate. Using bags also could mean more frequent trash pickups, especially for larger buildings.

Others worry about bags piling up and getting torn open by birds or rodents.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is a media partner of KOMO News. To read the complete P-I story with comments, click here.