In our kitchen there is a corner where the back door is, there we have the bin and the littler tray (which is one of those covered ones). Up until now the paper recycling basket was enough to keep ds (11mo) out, but he now knows how to push and move the box out of the way. I don't want him going in there. The corner is between two counters that are at an angle to each other, so a gate is not an option (plus I don't want to permanently attach anything to the sides as the house is rented).
We now put a chair stuck on the box and this works, but we need the chair for the table! Can you think of a solution??