A six-year-old girl's letter after a stay at an Olds hotel has changed the way that hotel chain deals with plastic cups, cutlery and dishes.
Six-year-old Ellie O’Hara and her family from Calgary recently stayed at the Ramada hotel in Olds after a snowstorm made highway travel unsafe.
During the breakfast service, the young girl noticed plates, utensils and cups were being discarded and asked her parents if she could write a letter asking the hotel to change that practice.
“Why can’t you think about mother earth?” O’Hara wrote in her letter. “Pretty please could you use reusable plates and cups for breakfast?”
O’Hara’s father Ryan O’Hara says that he was in full support of his daughter's decision to put her voice out there trying to make a change.
“I was all for it,” he said.
“I think we had been talking about plastics and that sort of thing as of late with the ban China’s put on importing plastics. So we had been talking about that around the dinner table.
“That was something she saw there and she said ‘what can we do about this? Let’s write a letter about this’ and yeah, I was very supportive.
“I thought that was a great idea and if she felt concerned about that, that’s something she should bring out,” said Ryan.
Ryan got a call soon after from a spokesperson for Ramada who said the hotel chain was inspired by Ellie's letter. Hotel officials decided to change their breakfast service to have reusable dishes at their hotels across southern Alberta.
Ellie told the Albertan that she hasn’t learned about the environment in class, but she has made use of the school's efforts to be environmentally conscious.
“We have like centres at school, there’s one where there’s plastic and stuff that’s not good for the environment,” said Ellie.
The up-and-coming environmentalist says recycled materials at her school are repurposed for making crafts. She has made a replica of a dog out of the recycled goods.
Ellie wants to continue making changes. She says that’s important to her because of how what we do and use impacts water and animals.
“If it goes into the water, animals can swallow stuff, like bags from grocery shops. And turtles could get sick and die,” she said.
A spokesperson for the hotel could not be reached by press time
