How do they know that the beer can was litter? Sure maybe it was but raccoons don't exactly let closed garbage cans get in their way and unsecured bags of trash are like ringing the dinner bell. Raccoons are all over our neighborhood if they smell garbage (we've seen evidence a dozen times in and around our garbage cans) and my NJ suburb is hardly a country setting. Leaving for work around 5 am one morning found my husband staring down 5 raccoons on our back porch - I had put a bag of garbage out there the night before and forgotten all about it. He was not happy. :)
We have a compactor for all of the cans and paper goods smaller than newspapers or cardboard boxes and all these go in a recycling container of 93 gallon capacity and it is stuffed before the scheduled pickup date of one month.
I don't know anyone else who does this.