In Project Hail Mary, there is a microorganism called Astrophage that is threatening Earth, but is also useful as fuel for interstellar travel. They find a planet with a another microbe that eats Astrophage. Problem solved! Earth is saved!

Then the thing escapes into the ship, and rapidly turns all their fuel into poop.

So Astrophage is analogous to plastic; we believe it's stable and reliable, until something shows up and eats everything.