This reminds me of a fun bit of soft sci-fi that I liked in the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld: the “Rusties” (pre-apocalyptic) society was taken down in par

This reminds me of a fun bit of soft sci-fi that I liked in the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld: the “Rusties” (pre-apocalyptic) society was taken down in part by a bacterium that digested gasoline and other petroleum products into some unspecified volatile substance that would then explode and destroy vehicles, also spreading the organism further.