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Toronto residents have been put on notice by city officials that now is the time to start recycling and using green bins for organic waste if they haven't already embraced the programs.

Waste diversion efforts are moving to a new phase that could include financial penalties for those who, for whatever reason, find it too difficult to sort waste into the three streams that make up the city's collection programs.

The introduction of fines for scofflaws who simply don't recycle or use green bins is not unexpected, particularly if the city is to reach its ambitious waste diversion targets set by city councillors in 2006.

Fining people for throwing things in the trash that no longer belong there is certainly a big stick for the city to wield.

Public Works and Infrastructure Chair Glenn De Baeremaeker offered some assurances this week that those who are making honest attempts to divert waste from landfill won't face fines if the occasional aluminum can finds its way to a trash bin.

What's not being addressed, however, is the fact that the vast majority of the recycling in Toronto is being done by the very people the city is now threatening with fines. It is those families in homes and neighbourhoods across the city that are the backbone of the city's recycling and organic waste diversion efforts.

The city's own statistics indicate that single family homes are diverting approximately 61 per cent of residential waste from landfill. Conversely, so-called multi-unit residences are diverting only 18 per cent.

Surely the city has skipped a step in this complex process in not ensuring that high-rise apartments and condominiums are contributing to waste diversion in a more equitable manner. Surely there is room for improvement and education in that sector before city officials turn their focus to homeowners and tenants in single family, semi-detached and townhomes.

Before any tickets are issued to, as De Baeremaeker referred to them this week, "a few oddballs" who choose not to recycle, the city must first get its existing programs operating, or alternative programs tailored to multi-unit and high-rise complexes.

Penalizing a huge group that by every measure is doing more than its fair share is patently unfair, although it's certainly easy for the city to do. But it doesn't make for good politics and it doesn't provide an adequate incentive for those doing considerably less.

Once again, the city needs to re-evaluate its priorities and do the right thing. In the proper order.