Today, they sell holders for them, and there are reusable pads as well, but even before disposable piddle pads, we used newspaper with plastic underneath and nylon net over it, taped down with masking tape to slow down the paper shredders...
The net is easy to clean and reusable even wet...we always tried to keep the the edges dry by the 'rubber band tie dye' method whenever possible. Nylon net was very inexpensive back then...and much easier than picking up all that paper!
