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 repeats every period of weeks, starting from the week number first_week. It uses the week number - it therefore restarts each year, as the week numbers start again from 1.
• 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 every-n-weeks, with the difference that it does not use 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

Based on the Home Assistant design guideline, the YAML configuratio option will be removed in the future.

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 (deprecated): add garbage_collection integration in your configuration.yaml and add individual sensors. YAML configuration 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

PARAMETERS FOR ALL FREQUENCIES EXCEPT ANNUAL AND GROUP

PARAMETERS FOR ALL FREQUENCIES EXCEPT ANNUAL, EVERY-N-DAYS and GROUP

PARAMETERS FOR COLLECTION EVERY-N-WEEKS

PARAMETERS FOR COLLECTION EVERY-N-DAYS

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.

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

PARAMETERS FOR GROUP

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

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

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.

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