## 8 Conclusions and Future Perspectives  
The analysis of NIAS in plastic FCMs has advanced significantly in recent years, driven by the growing recognition of their potential health risks and the regulatory push for safer, more sustainable packaging. While conventional polymers like PET, PE, and PP remain focal points due to their ubiquity, emerging materials such as bioplastics, recycled polymers, and composite systems introduce new dimensions of uncertainty, particularly regarding novel migrants and legacy contaminants. It is important to note that some issues discussed herein, such as mixture toxicity modeling or quantitative uncertainty analysis, are not explored in depth, since they were not covered extensively by the reviewed literature. Regarding sample preparation, the reviewed studies underscore that no single extraction method is sufficient for comprehensive NIAS profiling, given the chemical diversity and complexity of plastic FCMs. A concerted effort toward harmonized protocols, interlaboratory validation, and tiered extraction schemes tailored to polymer type and intended use, coordinated by international bodies such as EFSA, is needed. Future efforts must also prioritize greener, safer solvent systems and the development of advanced analytical workflows to address the evolving challenges posed by novel materials, recycling-related contaminants, and regulatory demands. Advances in analytical instrumentation, notably UHPLC, GC, and GC\(\times\)GC coupled to HRMS using Orbitrap or QTOF-MS analyzers, and more recently IMS, have revolutionized non-targeted screening, enabling the detection and identification of thousands of previously uncharacterized NIAS. However, the field remains challenged by critical gaps in spectral libraries, reference standards, and harmonized protocols, leading to overreliance on tentative identifications and semi-quantitative estimates. To address this, initiatives like open-access databases should be expanded to include polymer-specific NIAS spectra, fragmentation patterns, and CCS values. Clear minimum reporting standards, covering identification confidence, compound-specific response factors, and data transparency, should be established to improve reproducibility and comparability. The widespread adoption of the TTC approach and the Cramer classification for risk assessments reflects a pragmatic approach to prioritizing hazards, yet these frameworks struggle to address genotoxicity, bioaccumulation, and mixture effects, issues increasingly relevant to recycled and bio-based materials. Several priorities are essential to advancing NIAS research and regulation, such as increased collaborative efforts to expand open-access databases with polymer-specific NIAS spectra, fragmentation patterns, and CCS values. Moreover, synthesizing reference standards for high-priority migrants, particularly oligomers and degradation products, is critical to improving quantification accuracy. Combining non-targeted HRMS with in vitro bioassays (e.g., mutagenicity and endocrine disruption assays) and computational toxicology tools will enable mechanistic insights into NIAS hazards, bridging the gap between detection and risk characterization. Current risk assessments largely evaluate NIAS in isolation, underestimating the potential synergistic or additive effects of chemical mixtures. Operationally, this calls for implementing mixture toxicity models (e.g., dose addition) and defining default mixture assessment factors where data are lacking. Recycled and bio-based polymers necessitate tailored migration testing and risk assessments that account for contaminants introduced during recycling, biodegradation byproducts, and interactions between natural and synthetic matrices in composites. The shift toward circular economies and bio-based alternatives must be accompanied by rigorous safety-by-design principles.