In commemoration of Mandela Day, the Durban University of Technology (DUT) staff and students held a 67 Minutes Campus Clean-up Campaign in the Durban and Midlands campuses on Friday, 18 July 2025. The campaign was championed by the Green Campus Initiative (GC1), a student-led organisation which addresses issues of sustainability at DUT in partnership with Golden Key DUT Chapter, an internationally recognised academic honour society which recognises achievement and excellence among university students.

It was held under the theme: #AdoptaSpotDUT2025 to encourage staff and students to pick a spot to clean up in one of the campuses. The meet up point for the Durban campuses was the Curries Fountain Stadium and for the Midlands campuses it was Sport Centre at the Indumiso campus in Pietermaritzburg. Both groups came prepared to serve their 67 Minutes cleaning the campuses and ensuring a healthier and cleaner environment for the DUT community.

Speaking on behalf of GCI was Aphiwe Xulu, a third-year Shipping and Logistics student at DUT and an executive member of GCI.

DUT staff and students geared up for the 67 Minutes Campus Clean-up campaign.

“At GCI we promote sustainability at DUT from gardening to community engagement. We have a One Residence, One Garden (OROG) campaign where we ensure that each and every residence has a garden where they can plant crops for themselves. We understand that not everyone has enough money for essentials like vegetables, we make sure that they don’t buy vegetables and can use the money for other things. We also host Beach clean-ups and for Mandela Day decided to host a campus clean up, It was our first campus clean up and we were excited to see such a huge turnout,” said Xulu.

She shared that the Campus Clean-up was GCI’s way of honouring Mandela’s legacy by ensuring that the DUT campuses were cleaned up, to promote sustainability within the university. According to Xulu the campaign took place in the different campuses in Durban and Midlands where the groups were separated into three categories namely gardening, litter and posters, removing old posters arounf the campuses.

“GCI collected the trash and will be recycling the recyclable items while some items will be used for compost formation for the DUT nursery. We have some exciting events coming up, we will be holding a Fashion Show before the end of this month. Next month, in August we will be hosting the Green Summit,” added Xulu.

On behalf of GCI, she expressed her gratitude to the DUT staff and students for their support and dedication in ensuring that the campaign became a success.

Leading the Steve Biko campus team responsible for removing outdated posters was Ms Sara Mitha, a Librarian at the Alan Pittendrigh Library, situated in the Steve Biko campus. She had brought along a group of interns from the library to be part of this great initiative. She commended the event organisers for the campaign and her team for dedicating their 67 minutes to cleaning the campus. Despite getting the campus clean, Ms Mitha said she also got an opportunity to know her campus better.

Pictured: DUT staff and students excited to be part of the 67 Minutes Campus Clean-up Campain.

Photographer: S’bonelo Dlamini

Simangele Zuma