Right now all I have is a reminder setup where my kitchen echo will remind me to take the garbage can to the street but I am looking to have something a little smarter. I have been thinking about it for the past couple days, the best I can come up with is mounting a motion sensor on the side of my house low enough so its blocked by the garbage can. Then if no movement is detected between certain times on garbage day it will send the reminder to my echo. Anyone else have a better solution?
I am jealous of our EU buddies who have websites that are great for scrapping.
We have this weird system where on certain holidays the bin collection is shifted a day forward or a day backward or sometimes not at all. I never seem to get it right.
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I've had home automation for years but still use a reminder on my calendar the night before to "Take out trash/recycling/compost." Maybe I'm boring, but low-tech is best for me here. 
My behavior is so unpredictable--to add to the complication, our city just gave us large recycling carts and the option to get large organics carts, so I rarely have to take out all three every week anymore.
I've seen people propose using a contact sensor for a similar purpose to what you suggest (something where if it's close enough you'll make contact and close the sensor), but motion might almost be better if you can get it to not fire "false alarms": they make outdoor motion sensors (so if your area is totally unprotected like mine that's a lot easier than trying to make an indoor one work) but I'm not aware of any outdoor contact sensors besides maybe Sensative, and there's nothing you'd need to put on the bin (which in my city is mostly machine-lifted so you'd have to be careful where you put it).
I'd be curious to see what ideas others have since those are the only two I can think of (vibration, like with an ST Multi, might work too, but again would require placement on the bin and something to reduce the risk of false positives like if you just open it to put something inside). I'm definitely happy with not automating this in the meantime myself despite being generally into this idea whenever possible elsewhere.
I’m a fan of the calendar approach, but a pressure pad underneath your bins is also a solid approach
I have a piston which sends a pushover on the day to remind me, whether its the regular bin, or recycling bins (bi-weekly on each).
And I also have this on my dash to be sure 
