Cats. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. These fine feline friends are great pets, but when it comes to cleaning up their god dang litter, that is certainly not the cat’s meow.

Not only is cat litter not great fun to clean up (and buy), but most clay-based kitty litter is made from clay that is strip mined from the Earth, which is horrible for the environment. The U.S. Bureau of Mines estimates that in 1994 alone, approximately 1.5 million metric tons of clay was mined to make clay cat litter.

A good way to avoid clay litter, and to reuse, is to just use old newspapers as cat litter. Here’s how to make your cat(s) some homemade newspaper cat litter.

1) Sprinkle some baking soda on to the bottom of an empty litter box. This is optional, and helps absorb some of that atrocious cat pee smell.

2) Tear newspaper into narrow strips (less than an inch wide). Pro tip: It’s a lot easier to tear vertically than horizontally.

3) Use your hand muscles to tear those newspaper strips into pieces that are about half a foot long. Use a ruler if you want to, kitty will appreciate the extra precision.

4) Make it rain. Flutter, throw, or somehow get all that newspaper into the cat litter box. It should be over halfway full (it’ll flatten a lot when it gets wet).

Et voila, you are finished. It’s recommended to change the wet newspaper daily, or else it’ll stink up your house. Hopefully your cat will give the newspaper litter the ol’ thumbs up, and you’ll be on your way to a greener kitty litter box.