Garbage Collection

The garbage_collection component is a Home Assistant custom sensor for monitoring regular garbage collection schedule. The sensor can be configured for number of different schedules:

• weekly schedule (including multiple collection days, e.g. on Tuesday and Thursday)
• every-n-weeks
• bi-weekly in even-weeks or odd-weeks (technically, it is the same as every 2 weeks with 1^st or 2^nd first_week)
• every-n-days (repeats regularly from the given first date). If n is multiply of 7, it works similar to weekly or every-n-weeks, with the difference that it ignores the week numbers (that restart each year) but continues infinitely from the initial date.
• monthly schedule (n^th day each month), or a specific day of each n^th week. Using the period it could also be every 2^nd, 3^rd etc month.
• annually (e.g. birthdays). This is once per year. Using include dates you can add additional dates manually. You can also configure seasonal calendars (e.g. for bio-waste collection), by configuring the first and last month. And you can group entities, which will merge multiple schedules into one sensor.

These are some examples using this sensor. The Lovelace config examples are included below.

Table of Contents

• Installation
  • Manual Installation
  • Installation via Home Assistant Community Store (HACS)
• Configuration
  • Configuration Parameters
• State and Attributes
• Lovelace configuration examples

Installation

MANUAL INSTALLATION

1. Download the latest release.
2. Unpack the release and copy the custom_components/garbage_collection directory into the custom_components directory of your Home Assistant installation.
3. Configure the garbage_collection sensor.
4. Restart Home Assistant.

INSTALLATION VIA Home Assistant Community Store (HACS)

1. Ensure that HACS is installed.
2. Search for and install the "Garbage Collection" integration.
3. Configure the garbage_collection sensor.
4. Restart Home Assistant.

Configuration

There are 2 ways to configure the integration:

1. Using Config Flow: in Configuration/Integrations click on the + button, select Garbage Collection and configure the sensor (prefered). If you configure Garbage Collection using Config Flow, you can change the entity_name, name and change the sensor parameters from the Integrations configuration. The changes are instant and do not require HA restart.
2. Using YAML: add garbage_collection integration in your configuration.yaml and add individual sensors. Example:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
garbage_collection:
  sensors:
  - name: "Regular waste" # Each week on Monday and Wednesday. No collection on Christmas, added extra collection on the 27th
    frequency: "weekly"
    collection_days:
    - mon
    - wed
    expire_after: '12:00'
    exclude_dates:
    - '2019-12-25'
    include_dates:
    - '2019-12-27'
  - name: "Bio-waste" # Bi-weekly (odd weeks) on Thursday. Between March and November
    frequency: "odd-weeks"
    first_month: "mar"
    last_month: "nov"
    collection_days: "thu"
  - name: "Large waste summer" # First and third Saturday each month
    frequency: "monthly"
    collection_days: "sat"
    weekday_order_number: 
    - 1
    - 3
    first_month: "may"
    last_month: "oct"
  - name: "Large waste winter" # First Saturday each month only
    frequency: "monthly"
    collection_days: "sat"
    weekday_order_number: 
    - 1
    first_month: "nov"
    last_month: "apr"
  - name: "Large waste" # Combination of winter and summer sensors
    frequency: "group"
    entities:
    - sensor.large_waste_summer
    - sensor.large_waste_winter
  - name: Paper # Every 4 weeks on Tuesday, starting on 4th week each year
    frequency: "every-n-weeks"
    collection_days: "tue"
    period: 4
    first_week: 4
  - name: "Someone's Birthday" 
    frequency: "annual"
    date: '11/24'

Entity_id change is not possible using the YAML configuration. Changing other paratemers require restarting Home Assistant.

CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS

SENSOR PARAMETERS

Attribute	Required	Description
name	Yes	Sensor friendly name
frequency	Yes	"weekly", "even-weeks", "odd-weeks", "every-n-weeks", "every-n-days", "monthly", "annual" or "group"
offset	No	Offset calculated date by offset days (makes most sense for monthly frequency). Examples of use: for last Saurday each month, configure first Saturday each month with offset: -7 for 1st Wednesday in of full week, configure first Monday each month with offset: 2 (integer between -31 and 31) Default: 0
hidden	No	Hide in calendar (useful for sensors that are used in groups) Default: False
icon_normal	No	Default icon Default: mdi:trash-can
icon_today	No	Icon if the collection is today Default: mdi:delete-restore
icon_tomorrow	No	Icon if the collection is tomorrow Default: mdi:delete-circle
expire_after	No	Time in format format HH:MM. If the collection is due today, start looking for the next occurence after this time (i.e. if the weekly collection is in the morning, change the state from 'today' to next week in the afternoon)
verbose_state	No	The sensor state will show collection date and remaining days, instead of number Default: False
verbose_format	No	(relevant when verbose_state is True). Verbose status formatting string. Can use placeholders {date} and {days} to show the date of next collection and remaining days. Default: 'on {date}, in {days} days' When the collection is today or tomorrow, it will show Today or Tomorrow (currently in English, French, Czech and Italian).
date_format	No	In the verbose_format, you can configure the format of date (using strftime format) Default: '%d-%b-%Y'

PARAMETERS FOR ALL FREQUENCIES EXCEPT ANNUAL

Attribute	Required	Description
collection_days	Yes	Day three letter abbreviation, list of "mon", "tue", "wed", "thu", "fri", "sat", "sun".
first_month	No	Month three letter abbreviation, e.g. "jan", "feb"... Default: "jan"
last_month	No	Month three letter abbreviation. Default: "dec"
exclude_dates	No	List of dates with no collection (using international date format 'yyyy-mm-dd'.
include_dates	No	List of extra collection (using international date format 'yyyy-mm-dd'.
move_country_holidays	No	Country holidays - the country code (see holidays for the list of valid country codes). Automatically move garbage collection on public holidays to the following day. Example: US
holiday_in_week_move	No	Move garbage collection to the following day if a holiday is in week. Default: false
holiday_move_offset	No	Move the collection by the number of days (integer -7..7) Default: 1
holiday_pop_named	No	Ignore holidays (list of holiday names) Example: "Columbus Day", "Veterans Day"
prov	No	Country holidays - province (see holidays ).
state	No	Country holidays - state (see holidays ).
observed	No	Country holidays - observed (see holidays ).

PARAMETERS FOR COLLECTION EVERY-N-WEEKS

Attribute	Required	Description
period	No	Collection every "period" weeks (integer 1-53) Default: 1
first_week	No	First collection on the "first_week" week (integer 1-53) Default: 1 (The week number is using ISO-8601 numeric representatio of the week) Note: This parameter cannot be used to set the beginning of the collection period (use the first_month parameter for that). The purpose of first_week is to simply 'offset' the week number, so that the collection every n weeks does not always trigger on week numbers that are multiply of n. Technically, the value of this parameter shall be less than period, otherwise it will give weird results.

PARAMETERS FOR COLLECTION EVERY-N-DAYS

Attribute	Required	Description
first_date	Yes	Repeats every n days from this first date (date in the international ISO format 'yyyy-mm-dd').
period	No	Collection every "period" days (warning - in this configuration it is days, not weeks!) Default: 1 (daily, which makes no sense I suppose)

PARAMETERS FOR MONTHLY COLLECTION

The monthly schedule has two flavors: it can trigger either on the n^th occurrence of the weekday in a month, or on the weekday in the n^th week of each month.

Attribute	Required	Description
weekday_order_number	Yes/No	List of week numbers of collection_day each month. E.g., if collection_day is "sat", 1 will mean 1st Saturday each month (integer 1-5)
week_order_number	Yes/No	Similar to weekday_order_number, but instead of nth weekday of each month, take the weekday of the nth week of each month. So if the month starts on Friday, the Wednesday of the 1st week would actually be last Wednesday of the previous month and the Wednesday of 2nd week will be the 1st Wednesday of the month.
period	No	If period is not defined (or 1), the schedule will repeat monthly. If period is 2, it will be every 2nd month. If period is 3, it will be once per quarter, and so on. The first_month parameter will then define the starting month. So if the first_month is jan (or not defined), and period is 2, the collection will be in odd months (jan, mar, may, jul, sep and nov). If first_month is feb, it will be in even months. (integer 1-12) Default: 1

One of the parameters weekday_order_number or week_order_number has to be defined. But you cannot combine both options in one sensor.

PARAMETERS FOR ANNUAL COLLECTION

Attribute	Required	Description
date	Yes	Date of the collection using format 'mm/dd' (e.g. '11/24' for November 24 each year)

PARAMETERS FOR GROUP

Attribute	Required	Description
entities	Yes	List of entity_ids to merge

IMPORTANT - put include/exclude dates within quotes. Dates without quotes might cause Home Assistant not loading configuration when starting - in case the date is invalid. Validation for dates within quotes works fine. I think this is general bug, I am addressing that. (See the example above)

STATE AND ATTRIBUTES

State

The state can be one of

Value	Meaning
0	Collection is today
1	Collection is tomorrow
2	Collection is later

If the verbose_state parameter is set, it will show date and remaining days, for example "Today" or "Tomorrow" or "on 10-Sep-2019, in 2 days" (configurable)

Attributes

Attribute	Description
next_date	The date of next collection
days	Days till the next collection

Services

garbage_collection.collect_garbage

If the collection is scheduled for today, mark it completed and look for the next collection. It will set the last_collection attribute to the current date and time.

Attribute	Description
entity_id	The gatbage collection entity id (e.g. sensor.general_waste)

Lovelace config examples

Garbage Collection custom card

You can use the custom garbage collection card developped by @amaximus.

With images (picture-entity)

This is what I use (I like images). I use a horizontal stack of picture-entities, with card-templater plugin (Lovelace Card Templater) to show number of days:

(The state is designed to be used like traffic lights, this is why it has 3 values. You obviously cannot use this with verbose_state)

This is the configuration

      - type: 'custom:card-templater'
        card:
          type: picture-entity
          name_template: >-
            {{ states.sensor.bio.attributes.days }} days
          show_name: True
          show_state: False
          entity: sensor.bio
          state_image:
            "0": "/local/containers/bio_today.png"
            "1": "/local/containers/bio_tomorrow.png"
            "2": "/local/containers/bio_off.png"
        entities:
          - sensor.bio

List view (entities)

The simplest visualisation is to use entities. In this case, I use verbose_state to show state as text.

Integration configuration (you can customise state text by verbose_format and date_format parameters)

garbage_collection:
  sensors:
  - name: General Waste
    frequency: 'weekly'
    collection_days: wed
    verbose_state: True
  etc...

Lovelace configuration

      - type: entities
        entities:
          - sensor.general_waste
          - sensor.bio
          - sensor.paper
          - sensor.plastic

Icon view (glance)

Integration configuration

garbage_collection:
  sensors:
  - name: General Waste
    frequency: 'weekly'
    collection_days: wed
    verbose_state: True
    verbose_format: "on {date}, in {days} days"
  etc...

Configuration

      - type: glance
        entities:
          - sensor.general_waste