Lawrence residents, you now have some new help to take out the trash: your smart phone.

You may need it too, because beginning Tuesday about half of all residents will experience a change in the day they set out their trash for pick up. The changes are part of the city’s plan for implementing a new curbside recycling program, which will begin in October.

To help people remember their new trash days, employees in the city’s information technology department have created a new text or email alert system that will send you a reminder about when you’re supposed to set out your trash.

“We’ll send it to you the evening before or the morning of, whichever one you choose,” said Megan Gilliland, the city’s communications manager. “It should make it pretty easy for people to remember their trash day.”

People can sign up for the alerts by logging onto notify.lawrenceks.org. An e-mail address is needed to use the system, and users can choose to have the alerts sent to their phone or an email account.

For people wanting to check whether their trash day has changed, the city has a map at lawrenceks.org, or you can look at the interactive map below. For the past two weeks, the city has attached Post-It notes to the trash cans that are along routes that will change.

But even residents who aren’t experiencing a change in day are being reminded to have their trash set out by 7 a.m. The changes will make it likely that trash crews will arrive at homes at different times than in the past, said Kathy Richardson, the city’s solid waste division manager.

Generally, the city is expanding its residential trash service to run Tuesday through Friday. Previously, there were no residential pick-ups on Friday. Monday will continue to be the day that all residents set out yard waste collections.

Curbside recycling services will begin on Oct. 21. Recycling and trash will be collected on the same day for residents, although recycling will be picked up on an every-other-week basis, while trash will continue to be picked up weekly. The text and email notification system will be available to help people remember which week they are supposed to set out their recycling, Gilliland said.