Enviro-Cop rookie Blair Dickert takes her new anti-waste job so seriously that even the family can't escape censure.

The Davie 9-year-old wrote her grandmother a ticket this week for excessive use of the microwave. "She uses it every day and that's too much," said Dickert, a fourth-grader at the University School of Nova University. Dickert and more than 200 other elementary students at the Nova school were sworn in as Enviro-Cops on Friday, capping weeks of study and talks about recycling, conservation and the importance of keeping your body clean of drugs.

The idea behind the club, which is now in every elementary school in Dade, is to teach kids they have the power to change the way the environment is treated. Nova is the first school to start the club in Broward, but organizers hope to spread it to public schools in the county later this year.

The club is under the auspices of the ARISE Foundation, a nonprofit group founded seven years ago by Edmund and Susan Benson of West Dade. "We felt that adults were just too busy earning a living to get involved in something like this," said Edmund Benson, a 63-year-old retiree who once owned a furniture leasing chain. His wife, Susan, 50, teaches hearing-impaired children in Dade. "We're attempting to educate the children."

On Friday, Nova students learned about the club from a group of veterans at Skyway Elementary, an Opa-locka school that succeeded in shutting down a nearby $25 million compost facility that was apparently making students ill.

Together, the kids bobbed and swayed to songs such as We're Killing the Ozone. They were sworn in by Recycloman, a caped crusader who wears orange wing-tipped boots, tights and a mask. The identity of the Solid Waste Authority employee is a secret.

Enviro-Cops have the power to ticket offenders for everything from throwing trash on the ground to leaving the sprinkler on during a rainstorm. They learn to be tough consumers, rejecting Styrofoam and products that use excessive packaging.

Students also learn about home safety -- keeping wires away from water and turning off the stove when it's not in use -- along with gun safety, nutrition and fire prevention.

"We're teaching kids the environmental facts of life," Edmund Benson said. "These are things their parents don't have time to teach them anymore."

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