No, I'm very familiar with rats, but I can say for a fact that my friend's heavy duty plastic wheeled bins (the common ones) have been on the street 24/7 in NY and haven't been chewed into in the past 4 years. Probably how smooth that plastic is.

Fwiw the pilot program isn't using metal cans either, and apparently is working.

Edit: fun side note, I've seen a squirrel eat a hole through a 2" oak door to escape a basement, so Im not discounting a motivated rat :)