Everyone's rubbish: What bin collections taught me about Drupal

It started with a custom module built for Dumfries & Galloway Council's specific needs - taking data from their address API and waste collection system to make it easy for residents to check their bin collection days online. This session explores the challenges and process of transforming it into a flexible contrib module that any council can deploy, regardless of their backend systems.

I'll share the practical realities of making this transition: identifying what's reusable versus council-specific, deciding what belongs in configuration versus code, handling dependencies, and preparing for drupal.org release. You'll see how architectural decisions early in the refactoring process — particularly leveraging the Drupal Plugin API — determined whether the module could genuinely serve a wider audience.

Through real examples, I'll demonstrate how we can transform hard-coded integrations into swappable components, allowing the module to work with any data provider. The result: turning "our rubbish" into "everyone's rubbish".