Human Endeavors.

• Author: Martin, Ingrid
• Position: Alaskan company which markets a composting toilet and gray-water treatment system - Special Section: Small Business

Seventeen years ago, Clint Elston was in Colorado building dome homes, which gained popularity during the energy crisis of the early '70s. But Elston couldn't help but notice the irony of outfitting those same homes with what he considered wasteful five-gallon flush toilets.

Since then, he has worked to perfect an alternative. The end result is the AlasCan composting toilet and gray-water treatment system marketed by Elston's company, Human Endeavors. The high-tech, self-contained system, designed to handle both human and other organic wastes, has earned attention from federal agencies, environmental groups and consumers in rural communities.

A great deal of the interest is a result of the system's ability to solve water-supply problems. In remote areas, where honey buckets are widely used to handle sewage, Elston's system also can help combat hepatitis, a chronic problem perpetuated by contaminated drinking sources.

The AlasCan works to automatically dispose, decompose and recycle waste as it accumulates. Waste is sent to an insulated tank, where it decomposes into fertile humus.

While getting his ideas off the ground and into the public eye was slow going at first, Elston eventually prevailed. His first major victory came in October 1988, when he won an "Award for Energy Innovation" from the Department of Energy for his "Human Endeavors Geodesic Dome Live-In Research and Testing Project." The Healy dome, where he and his wife, Cathy Peterson, make their home, is outfitted with energy-saving devices that include solar panels and a ground-source heat pump, as well as the composting and gray-water system.

While the couple fully intends to perfect and promote all three ideas, AlasCan alone commands their attention now. A year ago, Elston was awarded a $99,500 Alaska Science and Technology Foundation grant. In September, the U.S. Department of Energy granted Elston another $90,000 through its Energy Inventions Program. The money will pay to perfect the product, automate production and promote the system's use.

The AlasCan system is an improved and expanded version of the old Clivus Multrum composting toilet, in common use worldwide for more than 50 years. With older tanks, maintenance was a tedious, often unpleasant task: It required putting wood shavings into the composting tank and mixing the pile manually to redistribute the liquids that had settled in the bottom. Elston's answer was to automate the composting operation by incorporating...