Oregon once had a battry recycling program. I would go through their buckets on a regular basis. The average thrown away akaline battery is 1.2 volts and according to the Radioshak battery book that cell still has 40 percent of it’s charge. I have pulled batteries out of clocks that were still running at .8 volts. Alkaline batteries can be charged as long as you don’t get greedy. This is still likely to leak so it is an emergency procedure only. Roll up a tube with paper insert 3 dead batteries one way and the other the other way. Join the ends with a wire and hold the wire in place with a rubber band. If it gets too hot the rubber band will melt and break the connection. 2 to 1 will work but you will need 24 hours to get a reasonable charge. 4 to 1 and things will start foaming. Some watch batteries will hold a small charge enough to see if the watch is working. Only charge the battery for a minute or so. Put too much charge in a watch battery and it will pop apart with the force of a pellet gun.
You should not be posting dangerous misinformation like this on a public forum. Some kid may take you seriously and hurt himself.
Recharging alkaline cells is a lousy idea.
As you said: [This is still likely to leak …].
There used to be chargers sold for this purpose. I had one. Bad device. 
Insane idea. Alkalines are a 1 way chemical reaction, there’s no way to recharge them and its dangerous to even suggest attempting it. Just buy some eneloops and be done with it.
They can in fact be recharged. Alkaline battery rechargers are actually a thing that you can buy.
And a thing that should not be bought…
I do agree. But it is not true that there is no way to recharge alkaline batteries.
Fair. According to reddit it depends a lot on the battery, and for some it works surprisingly well. I still wouldn’t do it, I’m already scared enough of them leaking without recharging 
Alkaline batteries are fairly cheap, buy new toss old.
Not everything sold is a good idea. Not clever, not actually economical after you factor in all the devices ruined by vastly increased leak probability. Years ago…had 2, tried them. Not a good idea…at all.
FWIW-the deeper the discharge, the more likely they would not recover and if they did probably leak.
To ‘best’ use them discharge should be kept to less than 50%, higher was better. So, you ended up needing to recharge all the damn time, and they leaked anyway.
Alkie chargers were A Thing back when alkes were still robust and well-made. A leaker was practically unheard of.
Nowadays, there’s a reason they’re called alkaleaks.
Choose wisely.
Here’s the question…if an eneloop somehow drops below 1V, could you parallel a few “drained” alkaleaks to it to resuscitate it before fully charging it on a normal charger?
No. A normal charger will provide a regulated current. If you add a battery in parallel, the current will depend on the resistance of the circuit and the state of the batteries.
A question for your question.
Is the main goal to recover the Eneloop?
Or, are you trying to figure out some odd use of old/near-dead/alkys?
And and associated question-what do you mean by ‘normal charger’? Single channel/smart, or dual channel/dumb?
There are much easier ways to jump a dead NiMh.
To just jump-start it enough because a “smart” charger refuses to even try? Yeah, I’ve done that.
AAAs are inherently fairly high-resistance, which is why “4.5V” from 3 AAAs won’t immediately pop a few 3V bipin LEDs in those cheepie flashlights.
Even a moribund ~1.2V alkie won’t hold up under load, and might drop pretty low when dumb-charging the NiMH cell.
I did that just enough 'til the “smart” charger started charging it.
Yes. Lol.
And when I say normal, I should have perhaps said “conventional”, not a cobbled circuit of dead AA cells.
And I have some simple battery vampires based off a CPFer’s old circuit…it squeezes every last bit of joice out of the “dead” alkalines, and uses an old 5mm led. Great for a positioning beacon in the dark, terrible for just about everything else.
I’ve always thought there could be interest in a 4 to 8 bay AA/AAA to 1-2 AA NiMh charger for this purpose. Open frame design and potted or remote electronics so it’s easy to clean up any leakers.
Each of the donor alkalines would need to be isolated from one another. The real available energy would be low, but people like doing things like this “just because” or they feel like they’re saving money/resources… Perhaps market it towards the prepping crowd.
Lithium batteries are dangerous. If an alkaline leaks it is going to corrode your contacts. The leak is no more dangerous than portland cement. Cement burns are a serious business and results from people not washing up afterwards. I do cross country bicycle trips. Batteries in the road are a resource I use. I will dunp the energy into the NiMh batteries that I carry. The Mcdonalds are removing their outlets because of people charging their Ebike batteries. I just had the opportuinty of examining thousands of batteries from recycling centers with freegeek.org being the biggest.
I remember my grandfather buying us a charger back in the mid 60’s. He was a really handy guy, especially with electronics before the transistor came into being. He did mention being careful when we used it, but I don’t remember it ever being used.
I assume you mean lithium manganese or do you mean rechargeable lithium (cobalt +/- nickel manganese) chemistries? I don’t see many 14500 cells available for harvesting.
One source of lithium cells I have come across recently are lipo cells harvested from discarded vapes, these are usually a “pseudo-cylindrical” cell, being a Li-po approximating a cylinder in shape and similar nomenclature. I’ve found 400mah and 500mah cells. I’m at a loss for good projects to use them in given their dubious safety…