So there you are, in your kitchen, holding an empty juice carton and the fate of the planet in your hands.

Your quandary? The carton is paper, but the nozzle is plastic. Can it go in recycling as is, or do you have to cut out the nozzle? Then there’s that peanut butter jar. Do you have to clean out the gunk, wasting water and/or paper towels? What do you do with the gunky paper towel? Is all plastic recyclable? What do the “recycling” triangles really mean? Why are some rules — and even colors of bins — different city to city?

Why is this all so confusing?

“For me and you, we’re just consumers. We just want to get rid of something, but you’re not going to get a bachelor’s degree in how to curbside recycle,” said Bruce Olszewski, director of the Center for the Development of Recycling, Santa Clara County’s recycling information clearinghouse.

The problem comes, he said, because of variables — from products and packaging made with multiple elements to confusing labeling, contracts with different waste haulers, market fluctuations and more.

Indeed, since the dawn of curbside recycling in California in the early 1990s, we’ve been doing pretty well when it comes to the basics — bottles, cans, paper. But many of us, even in the planet-friendly Bay Area, still get stumped about dumping certain miscellaneous items, and things often end up in the wrong bins, either contaminating the recyclables stream or sending items unnecessarily to the landfill.

In Alameda County, for instance, 35 percent of what landed in residential garbage bins in 2015 could have been recycled or composted, according to audits from StopWaste, a county agency promoting waste reduction and recycling.

“We know there’s a lot of what we call ‘good stuff’ that still ends up in the landfill,” said Tom Padia, of the Oakland-based StopWaste, meaning things that could have been recycled or composted. “The difficulty comes with some of these newer materials. It’s the miscellaneous plastics, laminated drink pouches, the juice carton with the plastic nozzle.

“Different (waste) companies handle them differently,” Padia said. “For the juice carton, some would say compost — the plastic would pop out. Some would say put it in recycling. Some mills can separate the fibers from the plastic. So people don’t always know what to do.”

Movements are afoot to put the onus on the manufacturer to streamline packaging and plan for how products should end their lives. Groups such as GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition are pushing for standardized labeling and encouraging businesses to participate voluntarily in their How2Recycle Label program, making it clearer how to dispose of individual recyclable items.

Troublesome triangle

But even labeling can be deceptive. For example, recycling advocates say, don’t be fooled by the familiar “recycle” triangle with various numbers stamped on many plastic products. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean the item will end up recycled into something else.

“The numbers were created for marketing purposes for the plastics industry,” Padia said. “They have to do with the dominant plastic resin in a product,” and aren’t really intended to guide the consumer.

Rebecca Jewell, recycling program manager at Waste Management’s Davis Street Transfer Station in San Leandro, said the triangle is “the worst favor the chemistry industry ever did for us.”

“Manufacturers strive to get eco-friendly information on their product labels, because it sells. But the symbol is not a reliable indicator of whether something ultimately gets recycled,” she said. “There are thousands of plastic products and packaging, and each one has its own unique chemical recipe. Many plastics cannot be made into new products at this time,” she said, holding up a block of hardened plastic with multicolored chunks that resemble mosaic tiles to show how different plastics melt and can’t be combined.

So what does the consumer do?

“Ignore the symbol,” she said. “Here in the Bay Area, all rigid plastics — like juice jugs and bottles, laundry detergent containers — go in the recycling, whether they have the symbol or not, and our optical sorters separate them,” she said. “But be sure to keep filmy plastics, like bread wrappers, plastic grocery bags and sandwich bags, out of the recycling bin — either take them to you grocery store, if they accept bags back, or throw them in the trash.”

Unless you live in central Contra Costa County, where Republic Services tells its customers that plastic bags are fine — so long as they consolidate them into one bag.

Glass seems easy enough, right? Not so. Not all glass goes in recycling. Only bottle glass from beer, wine and soda bottles, Padia said. Window panes, mirrors and kitchen glass — such as drinking glasses or bakeware — can’t be mixed in because they’re different kinds of glass and, like plastics, melt at different temperatures. Those items must go in the trash.

With all this, it’s no wonder we’re confused.

“I never know about paper items, like the ones that are shiny, slick advertisements and magazines,” said Los Altos resident Linda Miller. “Are those recyclable?” (Yes). “Also, I have heard that glass containers and cans don’t have to be washed before recycling? Is that true?” (Try to wipe out as much as you can, but some residue is OK. It burns off in the recycling process. Then put the food-soiled paper in the organics bin.)

Vexing variables

Around the Bay Area, the broad strokes of recycling are similar, but contracts with different waste companies create minor variations, which can complicate matters. Some accept batteries placed in plastic bags atop the bins. Some don’t, and things like batteries, CFL bulbs and chemicals must be taken to county hazardous-waste facilities. Some cities use different-colored bins. Some accept food scraps in the green yard waste/organics bins, but some don’t.

And food scraps — along with food-soiled paper, like greasy pizza boxes or the paper towel you used to wipe out the peanut butter jar — are some of the most important things to keep out of the garbage. When those scraps end up in the landfill, they produce high levels of methane gas. But when collected in a compost bin with yard waste, they can be turned into marketable compost for farmers and gardeners.

“Food scraps and food-soiled paper is the biggest area of potential for improvement — basically the biggest bang for the buck — that individuals can do to help combat climate change,” Padia said.

Yet, in a recent StopWaste survey of a few hundred residents in Alameda County, nearly 60 percent didn’t realize they should be putting food-soiled paper in the compost/organics bin.

Recycling advocates say it’s great that so many people are trying to recycle these days, but don’t forget the whole mantra of “reduce, reuse, recycle,” Jewell said. “Recycle is last in that hierarchy on purpose. Try to do the other two first.”

Contact Angela Hill at ahill@bayareanewsgroup.com, or follow her on Twitter @GiveEmHill.