We've got a lot of lids and bins. For the hardware cloth edges on the inside, we used a good set of clippers and just cut down as far as possible.

You could also leave some wire on the edges (about 1/16 - 1/8 of an inch), and just bend over the ends with a needle point plier, facing that outside so they wont come in contact with the ends.

If you don't want to spend time doing that, get an air driven die grinder and cut the hardware cloth or file down the edges. The rats won't hurt themselves on the hardware cloth in my experience.

I spend too much time playing around with hardware cloth. LOL