I try to avoid the world sustainable. It's come to mean everything and nothing. I have figured out, however, that whenever a liberal uses sustainable they like it and when they use unsustainable, they don't like it. That said, it does not seem a sustainable technology when you have to destroy all the shipping containers after a voyage and make/buy new ones for the next.
Amphorae got reused after a fashion — broken pieces or ostraca were used like post-its are today; surviving letters to family members serving in the Roman legions show up at the sites of former forts and whatnot on the frontiers.