Was this how Ring World fell?

A recycling bacteria got out of control and ate the infrastructure and the machines.

"...et in pulverem reverteri", a short story by Janusz Zajdel (up there with Lem of Solaris fame) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel

TLDR: Someone invents catalyst able to encode any material with programmable expiry date. Every country adopts it to ensure steady employment across planet. Pants? 3 months and revert back to dust, wrist watch? 1 year, car? 2 years, etc.

Can only find Polish copy https://web.archive.org/web/20170722210628/http://zajdel.dza... google translate doesnt like this particular web.archive link so you would have to manually copy text to translate

Ill Wind by Kevin J. Anderson?