A Tardigrade can be attached to almost any item to protect it while it exists as a dropped item entity.
Craft one Tardigrade with an itemstack to attach it. The protected item displays a Tardigrade icon and becomes immune to damage types in #critterworks:tardigrade_protects_from. By default, this includes environmental damage.
Craft a protected item with a regular Potion of Poison to remove the Tardigrade.
Configuration
The server config can toggle whether or not Tardigrade protection also prevents the item from expiring.
Data packs can change the damage types that Tardigrades protect against by editing the damage type tag #critterworks:tardigrade_protects_from. The item tag #critterworks:tardigrade_blacklist disallows items in it from having a Tardigrade applied to them.