Add one more group to the thousands of homes and apartments that will start receiving a new curbside recycling service from the city in October: Lawrence public schools.

City officials said Friday that they are committed to providing recycling service to all the Lawrence public school locations after it became clear that Deffenbaugh Industries had ended its recycling service to the schools.

“We’re committed to making sure all the schools have a single-stream recycling program,” said Megan Gilliland, communications manager for the city.

But there may be a transition period of a few weeks where the schools are without recycling service. That’s because Deffenbaugh has already removed its recycling bins from the school sites.

“We had hoped those would remain in place until we had something in place with the city,” said Julie Boyle, a spokeswoman with the Lawrence school district.

An attempt to reach a spokesman with Deffenbaugh wasn’t successful Friday afternoon, but the company had sent out a press release in recent days saying it planned to begin phasing out its commercial recycling service in Lawrence.

The company is ending its residential recycling service the week of Sept. 22. Kansas City-based Deffenbaugh decided to end its service after the city agreed to launch a new citywide curbside recycling service. That service — which every resident will be billed for regardless of whether they use it — will begin the week of Oct. 21.

Gilliland said the city hasn’t yet come up with a timeline for city recycling bins to be set up at the Lawrence school district sites. But she said the city was hopeful school service would begin in October.

Some parents and students have expressed concern about the end of the recycling program at the school. Boyle said the district understands those frustrations.

“We’re thrilled that students are passionate about recycling,” Boyle said. “We’re trying as part of our education program to grow good future citizens. We’re committed to having a recycling program at all the schools.”

Some commercial businesses may also have to start working on alternative plans for recycling service in the city. The release from Deffenbaugh said it plans to have all remaining commercial recycling collection operations in Lawrence largely concluded by the end of 2014. Gilliland said the city plans to eventually offer a commercial recycling service, but she said a plan for that service hasn’t yet been developed.

Deffenbaugh is asking all of its residential recycling customers — which numbered about 4,500 — to leave their yellow-lidded recycling containers at the curb on their final day of collection during the week of Sept. 22. Deffenbaugh crews will be by on that final day to collect the carts.

“Our Lawrence customers have been outstanding,” Tom Coffman, a spokesman for Deffenbaugh, said in the release. “We didn’t have much history in the community, which made the response we received especially gratifying.”