how to use the same asset in various places without increasing project size?

Question

I have a slew of assets that get used in various places throughout the project, but in different contexts/containers and with different object settings. Copying a sound SFX object into a new container seemed to work just fine. However, I just noticed that the parent work unit seems to be reading multiple copies of the same asset/adk file as unique, because the work unit size keeps increasing (even with no new assets added to the project).
Is there a way to use the same asset in different containers, with different object settings, without increasing the work unit size (excluding the small memory needed for storing the settings data)?