diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 27117db3f..8b7036626 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,6 +4,12 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 
 ## [Unreleased]
 
+### Changed
+
+- Objects are now streamed rather than polled when waiting for them to be deleted ([#452]).
+
+[#452]: https://github.com/stackabletech/operator-rs/pull/452
+
 ## [0.24.0] - 2022-08-04
 
 ### Added
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 68e285d4c..94cb65ecf 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -29,7 +29,6 @@ thiserror = "1.0.31"
 tokio = { version = "1.20.1", features = ["macros", "rt-multi-thread"] }
 tracing = "0.1.35"
 tracing-subscriber = { version = "0.3.15", features = ["env-filter"] }
-backoff = "0.4.0"
 derivative = "2.2.0"
 tracing-opentelemetry = "0.17.4"
 opentelemetry = { version = "0.17.0", features = ["rt-tokio"] }
diff --git a/src/client.rs b/src/client.rs
index cbf0437c3..a85f8a349 100644
--- a/src/client.rs
+++ b/src/client.rs
@@ -1,21 +1,20 @@
-use crate::error::OperatorResult;
+use crate::error::{Error, OperatorResult};
 use crate::label_selector;
 
-use backoff::backoff::Backoff;
-use backoff::ExponentialBackoff;
 use either::Either;
 use futures::StreamExt;
 use k8s_openapi::apimachinery::pkg::apis::meta::v1::LabelSelector;
 use kube::api::{DeleteParams, ListParams, Patch, PatchParams, PostParams, Resource, ResourceExt};
 use kube::client::Client as KubeClient;
 use kube::core::Status;
+use kube::runtime::wait::delete::delete_and_finalize;
 use kube::runtime::WatchStreamExt;
 use kube::{Api, Config};
 use serde::de::DeserializeOwned;
 use serde::Serialize;
 use std::convert::TryFrom;
 use std::fmt::{Debug, Display};
-use tracing::{error, info, trace};
+use tracing::trace;
 
 /// This `Client` can be used to access Kubernetes.
 /// It wraps an underlying [kube::client::Client] and provides some common functionality.
@@ -370,45 +369,21 @@ impl Client {
     /// from Kubernetes
     pub async fn ensure_deleted<T>(&self, resource: T) -> OperatorResult<()>
     where
-        T: Clone + Debug + DeserializeOwned + Resource,
+        T: Clone + Debug + DeserializeOwned + Resource + Send + 'static,
         <T as Resource>::DynamicType: Default,
     {
-        let mut backoff_strategy = ExponentialBackoff {
-            max_elapsed_time: None,
-            ..ExponentialBackoff::default()
-        };
-
-        self.delete(&resource).await?;
-
-        loop {
-            if self
-                .get_opt::<T>(&resource.name_any(), resource.namespace().as_deref())
-                .await?
-                .is_none()
-            {
-                return Ok(());
-            }
-
-            // When backoff returns `None` the timeout has expired
-            match backoff_strategy.next_backoff() {
-                Some(backoff) => {
-                    info!(
-                        "Waiting [{}] seconds before trying again..",
-                        backoff.as_secs()
-                    );
-                    tokio::time::sleep(backoff).await;
-                }
-                None => {
-                    // We offer no way of specifying a timeout, so this shouldn't happen,
-                    // if it does we'll log an error for now and continue iterating and wait for
-                    // the last interval we saw
-                    error!(
-                        "Waiting for deletion timed out, but no timeout was specified, this is an error and should not happen!"
-                    );
-                    tokio::time::sleep(backoff_strategy.current_interval).await;
-                }
-            }
-        }
+        Ok(delete_and_finalize(
+            self.get_api::<T>(resource.namespace().as_deref()),
+            resource
+                .meta()
+                .name
+                .as_deref()
+                .ok_or(Error::MissingObjectKey {
+                    key: "metadata.name",
+                })?,
+            &self.delete_params,
+        )
+        .await?)
     }
 
     /// Returns an [kube::Api] object which is either namespaced or not depending on whether
diff --git a/src/error.rs b/src/error.rs
index eb4fac511..9b80b031c 100644
--- a/src/error.rs
+++ b/src/error.rs
@@ -15,6 +15,12 @@ pub enum Error {
         source: kube::Error,
     },
 
+    #[error("Kubernetes failed to delete object: {source}")]
+    KubeDeleteError {
+        #[from]
+        source: kube::runtime::wait::delete::Error,
+    },
+
     #[error("Object is missing key: {key}")]
     MissingObjectKey { key: &'static str },