This morning I touched up my makeup with two Kleenexes, ate a bagel on a paper plate, drank a can of diet Pepsi and read the New York Times -- all of which I later threw away.

Like most of us, I avoid thinking about garbage. I generally just like to get rid of anything disposable as quickly as possible. I throw away disposable razors, beer cans by the case, those little plates from frozen dinners and at least two newspapers a day.

The average American throws out three-and-a-half pounds of garbage every day, according to the Nov. 27, 1989 Newsweek. I'm sure I contribute more than my share. The problem is, we're running out of places to put all of the garbage our disposable society is generating.

It's easy not to think about garbage. Garbage doesn't pose an immediate threat, and it doesn't sound as ominous as nuclear war or shoot-outs in crack houses. But it is a problem, and it's getting worse.

As we continue to come up with new, easier disposable products and continue to toss them, the environment is getting dirtier and more crowded with our trash. Pennsylvania's landfills are expected to be filled to capacity in less than five years. Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey export a total of eight million tons of trash every year.

The best solution to this mounting problem might be simpler than we think. People need to start pitching in instead of doing so much pitching out. If we are aware of the crisis and its implications and are willing to change our behavior, we can help our surroundings.

Recycling is an obvious starting point. It may take a little more time to save those beer cans and drive them to a recycling center, but it makes a whole lot more sense than throwing away so many things that can be re-used so easily.

In three months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the nation's entire airline fleet, according to Newsweek. And this trash is just sitting somewhere, taking up space that we can't afford to let it fill.

What can we do when we actually run out of landfill space? Incineration releases poisonous gases and dumping trash into our waters is not an option.

It's not easy -- we've been spoiled for a long time on paper plates, plastic bottles, and styrofoam take-out containers. We're used to tossing these things out and never seeing them again. But while we cherish life's little conveniences, we also need to cherish the natural world that surrounds us.

We can all take steps toward producing less trash. Abandoning paper cups and plates and going back to doing dishes, re-using containers and bottles, recycling paper, glass and aluminum -- all are small things we can do to contribute to the reduction of our garbage supply.

The threat is a global one, but sooner or later it will start to affect us locally, as the landfills are packed to capacity and new ones are built in our backyards.

It was not so long ago that "waste not, want not" was a way of life. Now we live in a kind of consumer-driven frenzy. We want everything better, faster, easier.

We want to go about our business and get rid of everything we don't need. Fast food, throwaway plastic bottles instead of glass -- manufacturers give us exactly what we want, and when we're finished with it, we toss it out of sight and never stop to wonder where it all goes.

It's time we all stop, take a good look at where all the trash is going, and make a commitment to doing our part toward reducing the supply. There are no complicated policies or practices that need to be explored.

Dave Forman, a radical environmentalist who spoke at the University last semester, may have summed up the situation best when he said:

"We human beings have no right, no divine mandate to come and conquer, pave, develop, chew up and spit out every square inch of the planet."

The best way for us to combat the rising garbage supply is simply to make less of it on an individual basis. It's not the most tantalizing idea -- but facing the 21st century with our precious land buried in garbage is not only unappealing, it's unacceptable.